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I
That the Theaetetus is one of the great pioneering texts in the
history of epistemology is agreed on all sides. But the solidly
doctrinal ways of reading it which were long fashionable have
been largely eclipsed, especially in the last thirty years, by
philosophically more rewarding approaches which treat it as
essentially exploratory and open-ended. Most recently, Myles
Burnyeat 1 has presented the Theaetetus in terms of a complex
dialectical confrontation centred on a choice between these two
kinds of reading.
At the risk of putting the clock back, I want here to approach
the dialogue from another angle, which I hope may prove complementary rather than obstructive. I want to present the issues
of interpretation in the form of.a confrontation between three
readings-readings which are the constructs not of scholars but
of card-carrying Platonists. How, in other words, was the
Theaetetus understood in antiquity by people committed in
advance not only to its internal philosophical coherence but also
to its coherence with a body of philosophical thought taken to
be correct in its entirety? Their reverence for the virtually biblical authority of Plato's text undoubtedly gave them some
blind spots. But it also rendered them sensitive to aspects of the
text which can easily slip past us today. That, at least, is my pretext for trying out such an approach.
1 The 'Theaetetus' of Plato, trans. M. J. Levett, rev. and intro. M. F.
Burnyeat (Indianapolis, 1990).
David Sedley
80
II
I shall follow the conventional division of the Theaetetus into
three parts. Part I (142-87) explores the definition of knowledge
as perception, including a powerful critique of Protagorean
relativism. Part II (187-201), officially an examination of the
2 I am thinking of Myles Burnyeat's arguments against this equation in
'Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration', Bulletin of the Institute of Classical
Studies, 24 (1977),7-16.
81
3 Proclus, in Prm. 657. 5-10: 'In the Theaetetus, having turned the
Protagorean theory over again and again, and thinking that he has demonstrated his own thesis, in preparing to raise in turn difficulties against his own
beliefs, he says, "What a terrible thing a chatterbox is!" , The citation is from
195b, at the end of the Wax Block passage. Therefore Proclus takes the Wax
Block to be part of Plato's reply to Protagoras. This view can claim some support from Theaetetus (Tht.) 187d6-8.
4 Proclus, in Prm. 654.15-26, where Proclus speaks of a Platonic method by
which Socrates trains the young, 'such as Theaetetus' (eEaLTYjTov, corr. from
()EO~ TOV on the basis of the Latin translation; cf. J. Dillon and G. Morrow,
Proclus' Commentary on Plato's 'Parmenides', trans. (Princeton, 1987), 44),
'investigating with both aims-whether what appears to each person is true, or
again whether it is not, and whether knowledge is perception, or again whether
it is not-both investigating in tum the difficulties of the true doctrines, and
tapping them and showing that they ring false' (echoing Tht. 179d).
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5 The difficulties raised against the true doctrines (see n. 4 above) are exemplified (see n. 3 above) by Socrates' own objections to the Wax Block.
6 Cf. also n. 53 below, for how Proclus explained Plato's decision to end on
a negative movement.
7 1 cannot accept the widespread view that Philo of Larissa's heresy of 87 Be
was an actual abandonment of akatalepsia (I have argued the point in 'The End
of the Academy', Phronesis, 26 (1981), 67-75). There is also the evidence of
Galen, de Optima Doctrina I, who claims that the Academic Favorinus,
although in some works maintaining akatalepsia, in his Plutarch 'seems to
allow that there is something firmly knowable'. My conjectural explanation
would be that the apparent concession appeared in the mouth of Plutarch, as a
speaker in an eponymous dialogue, and that what he said there was no more
than he says at De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1037c, that 'those who suspend
judgement' argue on both sides on the ground that, if anything is katalepton
('knowable'), that would be the best way of coming to know it.
8 J. Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Gottingen, 1978).
David Sedley
III
Having introduced the principal combatants, my next task is to
set them an agenda for debate. It will prove convenient to list
six main problems that, prima facie, confront any unitarian setting out to harmonize the Theaetetus with the rest of Plato's
(Euvre.
I. In the Republic and Timaeus, knowledge is distinguished
above all by its objects, the Forms. But the Theaetetus, far from
observing this requirement, again and again supplies everyday
empirical objects in its illustrations of knowledge.
85
We can sort out and contrast the three main Platonist interpretations of the Theaetetus in terms of their respective responses
to the six questions on this checklist. I leave aside a fourth possible strategy, the familiar modern one of treating certain dialogues as historical evidence for Socrates, and distinguishing
them from the mature dialogues in which Plato's own thought
was expounded. Some such tactic was used by Antiochus of
Ascalon in his battle to reclaim Plato from the Academic sceptics. 14 It would not be entirely surprising to learn that he numbered the Theaetetus among the purely Socratic dialogues. By
14 Antiochus played down Socrates' disavowal of knowledge as ironic
(Cicero, Academica (Acad.), 2. IS), but still contrasted Socrates' negative
elenchus with Plato's constructive dialectic (A cad. I. 17).
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doing so, he could have circumvented all six problems effortlessly. But there is no explicit testimony to go on, and in any
case the solution is a bit too easy to be interesting, especially to
those who recognize the Theaetetus as a mature product of
Plato's pen, written with the Republic rarely far from view.
The three main approaches on which I shall be concentrating all interpret the Theaetetus in conformity with what their
authors take to be Plato's official position on knowledge. Their
method is very simple. First you decide which is the important
Platonic dialogue on knowledge. Then you adapt your reading
of the other dialogues to fit in with it.
Most of our interest is going to be in the choice between the
Republic and the Meno as the most important dialogue. But we
can start, more briefly, with the Academic sceptics, whose distinctive move is to make the Theaetetus itself the. important text.
At Theaetetus I 50c4-7, in describing himself as an intellectual midwife, Socrates remarks: 'And the criticism which many
have already made of me, that I question others but make no
assertions myself about anything because I have no wisdom, is
a true criticism.' The anonymous commentator reports as follows (54. 38-43): 'On the basis of expressions like this, some
consider Plato an Academic, on the ground that he had no doctrines.' Here, of course, 'Academic' implies an adherent of the
sceptical Academy. We can compare the report in another
anonymous treatise, from very late antiquity, the Prolegomena
to Plato's Philosophy. 'Some people,' its author tells us, 'pushing Plato among those who suspend judgement and the
Academics, talk as if he himself introduced the denial of cognition (akatalepsia).'15 And he goes on to mention the Theaetetus
as a prime item of evidence: 'Their third argument is that he
does not think that knowledge exists, as is evident from his
eliminating every definition of knowledge, and eliminating
number, in the Theaetetus. How will we say that someone like
that esteems cognition?'16 The reference to 'number' is notori-
Anon., Proleg. 10.4-6. All references to this work are to the Bude edition
by L. G. Westerink, J. Trouillard, and A. P. Segonds, eds. and trans.,
Prolegomenes a la philosophie de Platon (Paris, 1990).
16 Ibid. 10. 23-6. See also Theaetetus, ed. Burnyeat, 235. I see no reason to
follow him in considering the two reported Academic interpretations to be
alternatives to each other. One addresses problem (4), the other problem (5),
but they are fully compatible and surely represent a single interpretation of the
15
18
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view, which he does not endorse, that the Theaetetus is a confutative or 'peirastic' dialogue, directed against Protagoras. (The
propounders of this view likewise held the Parmenides to be an
ad hominem critique of Zeno.) We have already seen how the
criticism of Protagoras in Theaetetus part I was thought to
extend into part II. It may seem incredible that they should have
thought it could be further extended into part III, but there is in
fact evidence that the Dream Theory, described and refuted in
part III, was regarded as Protagorean. 22
It is worth at least noting that this dialectical interpretation
was available, and that it dealt comfortably with problems (I),
(2), (3), and (6), the latter two being Plato's silence about his
own most characteristic views on knowledge. But it can hardly
have been welcome to the Academics. While compatible with the
picture of a sceptical Plato who set out to combat all dogmatic
positions, it is equally compatible with that of a dogmatic Plato
whose aim was to refute merely those theses which differed
from his own. Consequently, the Academics could have
adopted it only at the expense of abandoning the Theaetetus as
exhibit no. 1 in the case for Plato the sceptic.
88
20
IV
It is time to move on to the second major interpretation of the
dialogue as a whole. This one takes the Republic and Timaeus as
the key texts for Plato's epistemology, and interprets the
Theaetetus accordingly. Its essence is as follows. Platonic
episteme, as explained in the Republic and Timaeus, has Forms
as its objects, while the sensible world is the object of mere
doxa. The Theaetetus fails precisely because it addresses itself to
the epistemology of the sensible world. Consequently, it is to be
understood as an investigation, not of knowledge stricto sensu,
but of what in the Hellenistic age had come to be known as 'the
criterion'-that is, the principles and means of cognition in
general-with special emphasis on sensory cognition. As for
real episteme of the Forms, it is held that that topic is not tackled until the immediately succeeding dialogue, the Sophist.
22 This belief seems to underlie Damascius, de Principiis iii. 169. 5-22, ed.
L. G. Westerink and J. Combes (Paris, 1991); see eds.' note ad loc., p. 241.
David Sedley
Some of the Platonists have thought that the dialogue was on the topic
of the criterion, in view of the considerable space it also devotes to the
investigation of this. That is wrong. Rather, the declared aim is to
speak about simple uncompounded knowledge, and it is for this purpose that he necessarily investigates the criterion. By 'criterion' in the
present context I mean the criterion through which we judge, as an
instrument; for it is necessary to have that. whereby we will judge
things; then, whenever this is accurate, the permanent acceptance of
the things which we have judged properly becomes knowledge.
These 24 people, on the other hand, say that, having made it his
declared aim to investigate knowledge, in the Theaetetus he shows
what its objects are not, while in the Sophist he shows what its objects
are.
The two main components of this view are that the Theaetetus
is about the 'criterion', rather than about knowledge, and that
what it does reveal about knowledge is something negativewhat its objects are not. To see how these two components
jointly constitute a single interpretation, we must seek enlightenment from its proponents. While it is not possible to give
them a name, there is, I believe, a fully articulated version of
their position preserved in chapter 4 of Alcinous' Didaskalikos.
Significantly, this chapter is introduced as being 'about the cri23 F. M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge (London, 1935,1949; repro
Cambridge, 1957), 12-13, 28, 162-3. Although Cornford does not explicitly
acknowledge his debt to it on this point, he implies that he has read the whole
of the anonymous commentary (p. 28) and elsewhere (p. 15) cites 3.28 ff.,
which comes just lines after Anon. has summarized the interpretation in question. Unfortunately, Cornford takes no apparent heed of Anon.'s damaging
reply to the interpretation (p. 94 below). For a full critique of Comford, see
R. Robinson, 'Forms and Error in Plato's Theaetetus', Philosophical Review, 59
(1950)' 3-30; repro in Robinson, Essays in Greek Philosophy (Oxford, 196 9),
39-73
24 QVr[o{] is almost certainly the correct reading in 2. 33, and not ~[v"ot] as
in Diels-Schubart. This has the crucial consequence that a single coherent
interpretation is under scrutiny throughout the quoted lines.
91
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92
93
v
Now finally, and at rather greater length, let me turn to what I
shall call the subject-related interpretation. My excuse for
greater prolixity is that, since it is the thesis adopted by the
anonymous commentator, it is much better documented than
the other two.
29 See 58. 39 ff. Anon., like some other Platonists (Plutarch, Platonicae
Quaestiones 999cff., Proclus, in Tim. 397. 29ff., in Ale. 155. 17-28, 228.
30-229 2, Olympiodorus, in Ale. 53. 9-16, 173.21-174. 9), interprets Tht.
15 I c7-d3 as a boast on Socrates' part, comparing himself to a god. This is presented by Anon. and Plutarch as counter-evidence to those who call Socrates
an ironist.
30 Cf. Antiochus, as represented at Cicero, Acad. 2. 15 (n. 14 above).
31 Unlike Albinus, who implies approval of it at Intr. 150. 25-7. This is
strong additional evidence for Whittaker's separation of Albinus from
Alcinous; Whittaker with P. Louis, Alcinoos.
David Sedley
94
They have come near the truth, but they have not hit on it. For he is
enquiring not into the subject-matter with which knowledge is concerned, but into what its essence is. The latter is different from the former, just as in the case of skills there is a difference between enquiring
into the essence of each and enquiring into the subject-matter with
which they deal.
95
33 The opponents might cite in their support Republic (R.) 477C and
Timaeus (Ti.) 29b-c, where Plato distinguishes epis{eme from doxa largely in
terms of their respective objects. If so, Anon. can reply that at R. 477c ff. and
Ti. 51 b-52a Plato argues for the conclusion that Forms exist, starting from the
premiss that knowledge and opinion are intrinsically different cognitive states.
34 The same device is used by Alcinous, Did. 182. 35-7, regarding the
Republic's definition of courage at 429b-c and 433C: Soyp.aTo~ vvop.ov
aWTT]p{a SLVOV T Kat p.~ SLVOV, TOVTEaTL SLaawaTLK~ Svvap.L~ Soyp.aTO~
vvop.ov. Here Soyp.a represents the Soga of R.
35 This includes 16. 1-41, a complex analysis of Tht. 145d7-e6 as an
David Sedley
professed art of midwifery as the dialectical skill of making people recollect, which he in turn equates with helping them to
unfold and articulate their innate conceptions. 36
In making this unitarian move, Anon. faces the following
objection. 37 Socrates as midwife says that he finds many of the
young to be sterile, incapable of giving birth to an intellectual
brainchild. Yet the Symposium, introducing the idea of pregnancy of soul, asserts that every human being is pregnant.
Anon. anticipates this objection. Addressing the lemma at
151 b2-3, where Socrates speaks of 'some people, who don't
~ 'e
I
seem to me some h ow to b e pregnant (OL(\"
av JLOL JL'YJ\ oo~waL
1TW~
EYKVJLOVE~ ElvaL)', he comments as follows (57. 15-42):
Now in the Symposium he says that all human beings are pregnant
both in soul and in body. And it is likely that this pregnancy of soul is
recollection. 38 How then can he say here that it seems even to him that
some people are not pregnant? Well, we must understand here 'in this
life'. For even if it was once possible for them, they are not capable of
having these things to hand (XELV ... TTpoXELpa) in every incarnation.
Hence it was no accident that he added the word 'somehow' before
'pregnant', but so that it should be understood that in a way they are
not pregnant, i.e. as regards having it to hand. But, universally speaking, they must be pregnant.
In other words, all souls are pregnant sub specie aeternitatisand that is the claim made in the Symposium-but their present
state of incarnation can render them temporarily barren. As
Anon. says elsewhere (47. 19-23), what made Theaetetus himself seemingly pregnant was the fact that he was 'full', in the
sense of being naturally well endowed (EV~V~~) with 'common
conceptions', and 'did not have them deeply hidden'. 39
In effecting this reconciliation, Anon. equates the pregnant
soul's recollecting with its 'having' the knowledge 'to hand'
argument about recollection. I discuss this fully in 'A Platonist Reading of
Theaetetus 145-147', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 67
(1993), 125-49
See 46.34-48.35,52.44-54. 13,55. 14-33,56. 11-37.
Cf. M. Burnyeat's use of this objection in 'Socratic Midwifery, Platonic
Inspiration' .
38 Reading at 57.20-2 Ka? ~[l]K6S'[a'TL]!, T[ov]ro T[o Jv]X[iJ Kv]~a~r[L] aV~fL!'?7[aLv]
Elva[L.]
.
.
. 39 47. 19-24, reading OV]K ~l[XEV aV]Tas ~4>9 [Spa TTLKEK]~'\VfLfLE[V]~S at
22-4
36
37
Midwifery
97
Aviary
Incarnate soul
empty cage
inability to recollect
'possessing'
birds
'having' birds
'to hand'
ability to
recollect
recollection.
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98
43 Of the dozen instances in Plato, all permit the translation 'not completely', and three passages put it beyond doubt that this is the sense: Cratylus
386a5-c8, Lysis 204d4, and Euthydemus 286e9.
99
44 Cf. Anon., Proleg. 10.60-5: 'When he says "I know nothing", he is comparing his own knowledge with that of the gods, the latter being in a different
class from the former. Ours is mere knowledge, while god's is practically
applied. And god's knowledge knows by simple attention, whereas we know
through causes and premisses.'
4S The locus classicus was Tht. 176b. Anon. alludes to the doctrine at 7.
14-20, with reference forward to his commentary ad loco
David Sedley
100
He called himself a midwife after his mother, because that is what his
teaching was like. For there were other ways in which he made assertions and had doctrines, but in his teaching he made his pupils themselves speak about things, and unfolded and articulated their natural
conceptions. And this is a consequence of the doctrine that what are
called acts of learning are acts of recollection, and that every human
soul has viewed the things which are [TEOEaaOaL
OVTa] , and needs,
not the input of lessons, but recollection. This doctrine will be discussed in our commentary on the work On the soul. 46
Tn
This is a cardinal point of interpretation. A diachronic distinction, between the midwife's earlier childbearing phase and her
present phase as barren midwife of other women's offspring, is
taken to symbolize a synchronic distinction between two different philosophical modes in which Socrates operates. His barrenness is assumed merely as a didactic device. 48 Qua teacher
he is barren, qua philosopher he is not. Such an interpretation
has many attractions. If we had the later part of Anon.'s commentary, we would undoubtedly find him claiming triumphant
confirmation at I8se7-8. There Socrates, having eventually
Anon. clearly holds that Plato has the Meno's definition in mind
as the correct one,49 and that he deliberately suppresses it at the
Cf. 2. 29-32, translated above, Sect. IV: ~ TWV '.<~~~~ KpdJVTWV jLO'!H+O~
Y!!:'[E]r[a]L E7TLGT~IfTJ, which echoes Meno 98a5-6, E7TELDnv DE
DE(JWGLV, 7TPWTOV jLEV E7TLaTTJjLaL YLyvovTaL, 7TELTa JLOVLJLOL. Anon.'s view is
apparently shared by Cornford (Plato's Theory of Knowledge, 141-2, 158; cf. n.
23 above), but he does little (cf. Robinson, 'Forms and Error in Plato's
Theaetetus', 14-15 =Essays in Greek Philosophy, 53) to explain how he harmonizes it with the thesis to which he gives all the emphasis, the one I call the
object-related interpretation (see above, Sect. IV).
49
On the soul is undoubtedly the Phaedo (cf. Diogenes Laertius 3.58). Note
too the allusion to Phaedrus 24ge in the expression TEOEaaOaL
OVTa.
47 The papyrus originally read ayovo~, which was later emended to the
clearly inferior EVyOVO~.
48 See also 55. 24-33, 56. 2-10. Anon. could (although he does not) invoke
the support of Tht. 149blo-C2 as confirming that Socrates, in order to be a successful midwife, must have some experience of giving birth.
46
Tn
101
7TapaD9X~
David Sedley
end, where it would have been the natural next step. Why does
he think that? The answer is most clearly given by the anonymous Prolegomena, a work which at least in this respect shares
the views of the anonymous commentator. Replying to the
Academic sceptics' reading of the Theaetetus (p. 86 above), its
author says:
102
To these people, we will reply that Plato does not think that the soul is
like a tabula rasa, but holds that it needs only uncovering in order to
become sober and to see the facts, since it has the knowledge inside it
but does not see clearly because of its contact with the body. Hence it
only needs repurging (anakatharsis). And that is why 'he refuted the
badly stated theses about knowledge, thus allowing the soul to be
purged clean and to conceive the truth. 50
51
13
52 An analogous case could be made out for Phaedo and Republic. But that
is another story.
.
53 Proclus, in Ale. 28.4-9 adopts the same view of the dialogue's strategy,
but locates it in Socrates' address to Theaetetus, not in Plato's address to us.
This is less plausible, in view of Tht. 210b. There were also those who denied
that the Theaetetus is a maieutic dialogue: e.g. D.L. 3. 5.
54 My thanks to audiences at Cornell, Chicago, Pittsburgh, London,
Edinburgh, and Cambridge, and, for comments and advice, to James Allen,
Myles Burnyeat, Fernanda Decleva Caizzi, Pierluigi Donini, Gail Fine, Lucas
Siorvanes, and the editors of this volume.
CHRISTOPHER GILL
and