Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  THEAETETUS: How could we not understand that when we dare to say that falsity is in beliefs and words contain falsity, we’re saying what is [b] contrary to what we said just before. We’re forced to attach that which is to that which is not, even though we agreed just now that that’s completely impossible.

  VISITOR: Your memory’s correct. But think about what we need to do about the sophist. You see how many and easily available his supply of objections and confusions is if we assume, as we search for him, that he’s an expert at cheating and falsehood-making.

  THEAETETUS: Definitely.

  [c] VISITOR: He’s got a practically infinite supply of them, and we’ve gone through only a small fraction.

  THEAETETUS: If so, then it seems it would be impossible to catch him.

  VISITOR: What, then? Are we going to go soft and give up?

  THEAETETUS: I say we shouldn’t, if there’s even the smallest chance that we can catch him.

  VISITOR: So you’ll be forgiving and, as you said, happy if we can somehow extricate ourselves even slightly from such a powerful argument?

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  [d] VISITOR: Then I’ve got something even more urgent to request.

  THEAETETUS: What?

  VISITOR: Not to think that I’m turning into some kind of patricide.

  THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

  VISITOR: In order to defend ourselves we’re going to have to subject father Parmenides’ saying to further examination, and insist by brute force both that that which is not somehow is, and then again that that which is somehow is not.

  THEAETETUS: It does seem that in what we’re going to say, we’ll to have to fight through that issue.

  [e] VISITOR: That’s obvious even to a blind man, as they say. We’ll never be able to avoid having to make ourselves ridiculous by saying conflicting things whenever we talk about false statements and beliefs, either as copies or likenesses or imitations or appearances, or about whatever sorts of expertise there are concerning those things—unless, that is, we either refute Parmenides’ claims or else agree to accept them.

  THEAETETUS: That’s true.

  VISITOR: So that’s why we have to be bold enough to attack what our [242] father says. Or, if fear keeps us from doing that, then we’ll have to leave it alone completely.

  THEAETETUS: Fear, anyway, isn’t going to stop us.

  VISITOR: Well then, I’ve got a third thing to ask you, something small.

  THEAETETUS: Just tell me what it is.

  VISITOR: When I was talking a minute ago I said that I’ve always given up whenever I’ve tried to refute what Parmenides said, just the way I did this time.

  THEAETETUS: Yes, you did say that.

  VISITOR: I’m afraid I’ll seem insane to you if I’m always shifting my position back and forth, given what I’ve said. It’s for your sake that we’ll [b] be trying to refute what Parmenides said—if we can do it.

  THEAETETUS: Go ahead, then. Don’t worry about that. I won’t think you’re behaving inappropriately in any way if you go right ahead with your refutation and demonstration.

  VISITOR: Well then, how shall I begin this dangerous discussion? The path we absolutely have to turn onto, my boy, is this.

  THEAETETUS: Namely, … ?

  VISITOR: We have to reconsider whether we may not be somehow confused about things that now seem to be clear, and whether over-hasty [c] judgment may make us agree too easily.

  THEAETETUS: Say what you mean more clearly.

  VISITOR: Parmenides’ way of talking to us has been rather easygoing, it seems to me. So does the way of talking that everyone uses who has ever urged us to specify just how many beings there are and what they’re like.

  THEAETETUS: How?

  VISITOR: They each appear to me to tell us a myth, as if we were children. One tells us that there are three beings, and that sometimes they’re somehow at war with each other, while at other times they become friendly, [d] marry, give birth, and bring up their offspring. Another one says that there are two beings, wet and dry or hot and cold. He marries them off and makes them set up house together. And our Eleatic tribe, starting from Xenophanes and even people before him, tells us their myth on the assumption that what they call “all things” are just one.12 Later on, some Ionian and Sicilian muses both had the idea that it was safer to weave the two [e] views together. They say that that which is is both many and one, and is bound by both hatred and friendship. According to the terser of these muses, in being taken apart they’re brought together.13 The more relaxed muses, though, allow things to be free from that condition sometimes. They say that all that there is alternates, and that sometimes it’s one and [243] friendly under Aphrodite’s influence, but at other times it’s many and at war with itself because of some kind of strife.14 It’s hard to say whether any one of these thinkers has told us the truth or not, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to be critical of such renowned and venerable men. But it wouldn’t be offensive to note the following thing, either.

  THEAETETUS: What?

  VISITOR: That they’ve overlooked the many of us and belittled us. They’ve simply been talking their way through their explanations, without [b] paying any attention to whether we were following them or were left behind.

  THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

  VISITOR: For heaven’s sake, Theaetetus, do you understand anything of what they mean each time one of them says that many or one or two things are or have become or are becoming, or when another one speaks of hot mixed with cold and supposes that there are separations and combinations?15 Earlier in my life I used to think I understood exactly what someone meant when he said just what we’re confused about now, namely, this is not. You do see what confusion we’re in about it?

  [c] THEAETETUS: Yes, I do.

  VISITOR: But just perhaps the very same thing has happened to us equally about is. We say we’re in the clear about it, and that we understand when someone says it, but that we don’t understand is not. But maybe we’re in the same state about both.

  THEAETETUS: Maybe.

  VISITOR: And let’s suppose the same thing may be true of the other expressions we’ve just used.

  THEAETETUS: All right.

  [d] VISITOR: We can look into most of them later, if that seems to be the best thing to do. Now we’ll think about the most fundamental and most important expression.

  THEAETETUS: Which one? Oh, obviously you’re saying that being is the one we have to explore first—that we have to ask what people who say it think they’re indicating by it.

  VISITOR: You understand exactly, Theaetetus. I’m saying we have to follow the track this way. Let’s ask—as if they were here—“Listen, you people who say that all things are just some two things, hot and cold or [e] some such pair. What are you saying about them both when you say that they both are and each one is? What shall we take this being to be? Is it a third thing alongside those two beings, so that according to you everything is no longer two but three? Surely in calling one or the other of the two of them being, you aren’t saying that they both are, since then in either case they’d be one and not two.”

  THEAETETUS: That’s true.

  VISITOR: “But you do want to call both of them being?”

  THEAETETUS: Probably.

  VISITOR: “But,” we’ll say, “if you did that, friends, you’d also be saying [244] very clearly that the two are one.”

  THEAETETUS: That’s absolutely right.

  VISITOR: “Then clarify this for us, since we’re confused about it. What do you want to signify when you say being? Obviously you’ve known for a long time. We thought we did, but now we’re confused about it. So first teach it to us, so we won’t think we understand what you’re saying when just the contrary is the case.” Would it be the least bit inappropriate for [b] us to ask them this, and anyone else who says that everything is more than one?

  THEAETETUS: Not at all.

  VISITOR: Well, then, shouldn’t we do our best to
find out from the people who say that everything is one what they mean by being?

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: Then they should answer this question: “Do you say that only one thing is?” “We do,” they’ll say, won’t they?

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: “Well then, you call something being?”

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: “Is that just what you call one, so that you use two names for [c] the same thing? Or what?”

  THEAETETUS: How will they answer that question?

  VISITOR: Obviously it’s not the easiest thing in the world to answer that question—or any other question, either—for someone who makes the supposition that they do.

  THEAETETUS: Why not?

  VISITOR: Surely it’s absurd for someone to agree that there are two names when he maintains that there’s only one thing.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: And it’s completely absurd, and unacceptable, for someone to say that there’s a name if there’s no account of it. [d]

  THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

  VISITOR: If he supposes that a thing is different from its name, then surely he’s mentioning two things.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: And moreover if he supposes that the name is the same as the thing, he’ll either be forced to say that the name is the name of nothing, or else, if he says that it’s the name of something, then it’s the name of nothing other than itself and so will turn out to be only the name of a name and nothing else.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: And also the one, being the name of the one, will also be the one of the name.16

  THEAETETUS: It will have to be.

  VISITOR: Well then, will they say that the whole is different from the one being, or the same as it?

  [e] THEAETETUS: Of course they’ll say it’s the same, and they do.

  VISITOR: But suppose a whole is, as even Parmenides says,

  All around like the bulk of a well-formed sphere,

  Equal-balanced all ways from the middle, since neither anything more

  Must it be, this way or that way, nor anything less.

  If it’s like that, then that which is will have a middle and extremities. And if it has those then it absolutely has to have parts, doesn’t it?

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  [245] VISITOR: But if a thing has parts then nothing keeps it from having the characteristic of being one in all its parts, and in that way it’s all being and it’s also one whole.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: But something with that characteristic can’t be just the one itself, can it?

  THEAETETUS: Why not?

  VISITOR: Surely a thing that’s truly one, properly speaking, has to be completely without parts.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  [b] VISITOR: But a thing like what we’ve described, which consists of many parts, won’t fit that account.

  THEAETETUS: I understand.

  VISITOR: Now if that which is has the characteristic of the one in this way, will it be one and a whole? Or shall we simply deny it’s a whole at all?

  THEAETETUS: That’s a hard choice.

  VISITOR: You’re right. If it has the characteristic of somehow being one, it won’t appear to be the same as the one. Moreover, everything will then be more than one.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: Further if that which is is not a whole by possessing that as a [c] characteristic, but rather just is the whole itself, that which is will turn out to be less than itself.

  THEAETETUS: Certainly.

  VISITOR: And because it’s deprived of itself, that which is will be not being, according to that account.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: And everything will be more than one, since that which is and the whole will each have its own separate nature.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: But if the whole is not at all, then the very same things are true of that which is, and in addition to not being, it would not even become [d] a being.

  THEAETETUS: Why not?

  VISITOR: Invariably whatever becomes has at some point become as a whole. So we can’t label either being or becoming as being without taking the whole to be among the beings too.

  THEAETETUS: That seems entirely right.

  VISITOR: And moreover something that isn’t a whole can’t be of any quantity at all, since something that’s of a certain quantity has to be a whole of that quantity, whatever it may be.

  THEAETETUS: Exactly.

  VISITOR: And millions of other issues will also arise, each generating indefinitely many confusions, if you say that being is only two or one. [e]

  THEAETETUS: The ones that just turned up show that. One problem led to another, and at each step there was more and more difficulty and uncertainty about what we’d just said at the previous stage.

  VISITOR: We haven’t gone through all the detailed accounts that people give of that which is and that which is not, but this is enough. Now we have to look at the people who discuss the issue in another way. Our aim is to have them all in view and that way to see that saying what that which is [246] is isn’t a bit easier than saying what that which is not is.

  THEAETETUS: So we need to go on to these people too.

  VISITOR: It seems that there’s something like a battle of gods and giants among them, because of their dispute with each other over being.17

  THEAETETUS: How?

  VISITOR: One group drags everything down to earth from the heavenly region of the invisible, actually clutching rocks and trees with their hands. When they take hold of all these things they insist that only what offers tangible contact is, since they define being as the same as body. And if [b] any of the others say that something without a body is, they absolutely despise him and won’t listen to him any more.

  THEAETETUS: These are frightening men you’re talking about. I’ve met quite a lot of them already.

  VISITOR: Therefore the people on the other side of the debate defend their position very cautiously, from somewhere up out of sight. They insist violently that true being is certain nonbodily forms that can be thought about. They take the bodies of the other group, and also what they call [c] the truth, and they break them up verbally into little bits and call them a process of coming-to-be instead of being. There’s a never-ending battle going on constantly between them about this issue.

  THEAETETUS: That’s true.

  VISITOR: Let’s talk with each of these groups about the being that they posit.

  THEAETETUS: How shall we do it?

  VISITOR: It’s easier to talk with the ones who put being in the forms. They’re gentler people. It’s harder—and perhaps just about impossible—with [d] the ones who drag everything down to body by force. It seems to me that we have to deal with them this way.

  THEAETETUS: Namely … ?

  VISITOR: Mainly by making them actually better than they are—if we somehow could. But if we can’t do that in fact, then let’s do it in words, by supposing that they’re willing to answer less wildly than they actually do. Something that better people agree to is worth more than what worse ones agree to. Anyway we’re not concerned with the people; we’re looking for what’s true.

  [e] THEAETETUS: That’s absolutely right.

  VISITOR: Then tell the better people to answer you and interpret what they say.

  THEAETETUS: All right.

  VISITOR: Then let them tell us this: do they say that anything is a mortal animal?

  THEAETETUS: Of course they do.

  VISITOR: And they agree that a mortal animal is an ensouled body?

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  [247] VISITOR: And so they’re placing soul among the beings?

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: What then? Do they say that this soul is just and that soul is unjust, and that this one’s intelligent and that one isn’t?

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: B
ut isn’t a soul just by the possession and presence of justice, and isn’t another soul contrary to it by the possession and presence of the contrary?

  THEAETETUS: Yes, they agree with that.

  VISITOR: But they’ll say further that at any rate what can be present to a thing or absent from it is something.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: So since there is justice and intelligence and the rest of virtue, [b] and also their contraries, and moreover since there is a soul in which those things come to be present, do they say that any of these are visible or touchable, or that they all are invisible?

  THEAETETUS: They can hardly say any of them is visible.

  VISITOR: And what about these invisible things? Do they say that they have bodies?

  THEAETETUS: They don’t give one single answer to that question. They do say that the soul seems to them to have a kind of body. But as far as intelligence and the other things you’ve asked about are concerned, they’re ashamed and don’t dare either to agree that they are not beings or to insist [c] that they are all bodies.

  VISITOR: Obviously this breed of men has improved, Theaetetus. The native earthborn giants would never have been ashamed to hold the line for their position, that anything they can’t squeeze in their hands is absolutely nothing.

  THEAETETUS: That pretty much describes their thinking.

  VISITOR: Then let’s go back to questioning them. It’s enough if they admit that even a small part of that which is doesn’t have body. They need to [d] say something about what’s common to both it and the things that do have body, which they focus on when they say that they both are. Maybe that will raise some confusion for them. If it does, then think about whether they’d be willing to accept our suggestion that that which is is something like the following.

  THEAETETUS: Like what? Tell me and maybe we’ll know.

  VISITOR: I’m saying that a thing really is if it has any capacity at all, [e] either by nature to do something to something else or to have even the smallest thing done to it by even the most trivial thing, even if it only happens once. I’ll take it as a definition that those which are amount to nothing other than capacity.

  THEAETETUS: They accept that, since they don’t have anything better to say right now.