Complete Works

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

  VISITOR: Fine. Maybe something else will occur to them later, and to us too. For now let’s agree with them on this much. [248]

  THEAETETUS: All right.

  VISITOR: Let’s turn to the other people, the friends of the forms. You serve as their interpreter for us.

  THEAETETUS: All right.

  VISITOR: You people distinguish coming-to-be and being and say that they are separate? Is that right?

  THEAETETUS: “Yes.”

  VISITOR: And you say that by our bodies and through perception we have dealings with coming-to-be, but we deal with real being by our souls and through reasoning. You say that being always stays the same and in the same state, but coming-to-be varies from one time to another.

  [b] THEAETETUS: “We do say that.”

  VISITOR: And what shall we say this dealing with is that you apply in the two cases? Doesn’t it mean what we said just now?

  THEAETETUS: “What?”

  VISITOR: What happens when two things come together, and by some capacity one does something to the other or has something done to it. Or maybe you don’t hear their answer clearly, Theaetetus. But I do, probably because I’m used to them.

  THEAETETUS: Then what account do they give?

  [c] VISITOR: They don’t agree with what we just said to the earth people about being.

  THEAETETUS: What’s that?

  VISITOR: We took it as a sufficient definition of beings that the capacity be present in a thing to do something or have something done to it, to or by even the smallest thing or degree.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: In reply they say that coming-to-be has the capacity to do something or have something done to it, but that this capacity doesn’t fit with being.

  THEAETETUS: Is there anything to that?

  [d] VISITOR: We have to reply that we need them to tell us more clearly whether they agree that the soul knows and also that being is known.

  THEAETETUS: “Yes,” they say.

  VISITOR: Well then, do you say that knowing and being known are cases of doing, or having something done, or both? Is one of them doing and the other having something done? Or is neither a case of either?

  THEAETETUS: Obviously that neither is a case of either, since otherwise they’d be saying something contrary to what they said before.

  [e] VISITOR: Oh, I see. You mean that if knowing is doing something, then necessarily what is known has something done to it. When being is known by knowledge, according to this account, then insofar as it’s known it’s changed by having something done to it—which we say wouldn’t happen to something that’s at rest.

  THEAETETUS: That’s correct.

  VISITOR: But for heaven’s sake, are we going to be convinced that it’s true that change, life, soul, and intelligence are not present in that which [249] wholly is, and that it neither lives nor thinks, but stays changeless, solemn, and holy, without any understanding?

  THEAETETUS: If we did, sir, we’d be admitting something frightening.

  VISITOR: But are we going to say that it has understanding but doesn’t have life?

  THEAETETUS: Of course not.

  VISITOR: But are we saying that it has both those things in it while denying that it has them in a soul?

  THEAETETUS: How else would it have them?

  VISITOR: And are we saying that it has intelligence, life, and soul, but that it’s at rest and completely changeless even though it’s alive?

  THEAETETUS: All that seems completely unreasonable. [b]

  VISITOR: Then both that which changes and also change have to be admitted as being.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: And so, Theaetetus, it turns out that if no beings change then nothing anywhere possesses any intelligence about anything.18

  THEAETETUS: Absolutely not.

  VISITOR: But furthermore if we admit that everything is moving and changing, then on that account we take the very same thing away from those which are.

  THEAETETUS: Why?

  VISITOR: Do you think that without rest anything would be the same, in the same state in the same respects? [c]

  THEAETETUS: Not at all.

  VISITOR: Well then, do you see any case in which intelligence is or comes-to-be anywhere without these things?

  THEAETETUS: Not in the least.

  VISITOR: And we need to use every argument we can to fight against anyone who does away with knowledge, understanding, and intelligence but at the same time asserts anything at all about anything.

  THEAETETUS: Definitely.

  VISITOR: The philosopher—the person who values these things the most—absolutely has to refuse to accept the claim that everything is at rest, either from defenders of the one or from friends of the many forms. [d] In addition he has to refuse to listen to people who make that which is change in every way. He has to be like a child begging for “both,” and say that that which is—everything—is both the unchanging and that which changes.

  THEAETETUS: True.

  VISITOR: Well now, apparently we’ve done a fine job of making our account pull together that which is, haven’t we?

  THEAETETUS: Absolutely.

  VISITOR: But for heaven’s sake, Theaetetus, … Now I think we’ll recognize how confused our investigation about it is.

  THEAETETUS: Why, though? What do you mean? [e]

  VISITOR: Don’t you notice, my young friend, that we’re now in extreme ignorance about it, though it appears to us that we’re saying something.

  THEAETETUS: It does to me anyway. But I don’t completely understand how we got into this situation without noticing.

  VISITOR: Then think more clearly about it. Given what we’ve just agreed [250] to, would it be fair for someone to ask us the same question we earlier asked the people who say that everything is just hot and cold?

  THEAETETUS: What was it? Remind me.

  VISITOR: Certainly. And I’ll try, at any rate, to do it by asking you in just the same way as I asked them, so that we can move forward at the same pace.

  THEAETETUS: Good.

  VISITOR: Now then, wouldn’t you say that change and rest are completely contrary to each other?

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: And you’d say they both equally are, and that each of them equally is?

  [b] THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: When you admit that they are, are you saying that both and each of them change?

  THEAETETUS: Not at all.

  VISITOR: And are you signifying that they rest when you say that they both are?

  THEAETETUS: Of course not.

  VISITOR: So do you conceive that which is as a third thing alongside them which encompasses rest and change? And when you say that they both are, are you taking the two of them together and focusing on their association with being?

  [c] THEAETETUS: It does seem probably true that when we say change and rest are, we do have a kind of omen of that which is as a third thing.

  VISITOR: So that which is isn’t both change and rest; it’s something different from them instead.

  THEAETETUS: It seems so.

  VISITOR: Therefore by its own nature that which is doesn’t either rest or change.

  THEAETETUS: I suppose it doesn’t.

  VISITOR: Which way should someone turn his thoughts if he wants to establish for himself something clear about it?

  THEAETETUS: I don’t know.

  VISITOR: I don’t think any line is easy. If something isn’t changing, how [d] can it not be resting? And how can something not change if it doesn’t in any way rest? But now that which is appears to fall outside both of them. Is that possible?

  THEAETETUS: Absolutely not.

  VISITOR: In this connection we ought to remember the following.

  THEAETETUS: What?

  VISITOR: When we were asked what we should apply the name that which is not to, we became completely confused. Do you remember?

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: And now are
n’t we in just as much confusion about that [e] which is?

  THEAETETUS: We seem to be in even more confusion, if that’s possible.

  VISITOR: Then we’ve now given a complete statement of our confusion. But there’s now hope, precisely because both that which is and that which is not are involved in equal confusion. That is, in so far as one of them is clarified, either brightly or dimly, the other will be too. And if we can’t [251] see either of them, then anyway we’ll push our account of both of them forward as well as we can.

  THEAETETUS: Fine.

  VISITOR: Let’s give an account of how we call the very same thing, whatever it may be, by several names.

  THEAETETUS: What, for instance? Give me an example.

  VISITOR: Surely we’re speaking of a man even when we name him several things, that is, when we apply colors to him and shapes, sizes, defects, and virtues. In these cases and a million others we say that he’s not only a man but also is good and indefinitely many different things. And similarly [b] on the same account we take a thing to be one, and at the same time we speak of it as many by using many names for it.

  THEAETETUS: That’s true.

  VISITOR: Out of all this we’ve prepared a feast for young people and for old late-learners. They can grab hold of the handy idea that it’s impossible for that which is many to be one and for that which is one to be many. They evidently enjoy forbidding us to say that a man is good, and only [c] letting us say that that which is good is good, or that the man is a man. You’ve often met people, I suppose, who are carried away by things like that. Sometimes they’re elderly people who are amazed at this kind of thing, because their understanding is so poor and they think they’ve discovered something prodigiously wise.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: Then let’s direct our questions now both to these people and [d] also to the others we were talking with before. That way our account will be addressed to everyone who’s ever said anything at all about being.

  THEAETETUS: What questions do you mean?

  VISITOR: Shall we refuse to apply being to change or to rest, or anything to anything else? Shall we take these things to be unblended and incapable of having a share of each other in the things we say? Or shall we pull them all together and treat them all as capable of associating with each other? Or shall we say that some can associate and some can’t? Which of these options shall we say they’d choose, Theaetetus? [e]

  THEAETETUS: I don’t know how to answer for them.

  VISITOR: Why don’t you reply to the options one by one by thinking about what results from each of them?

  THEAETETUS: Fine.

  VISITOR: First, if you like, let’s take them to say that nothing has any capacity at all for association with anything. Then change and rest won’t have any share in being.

  [252] THEAETETUS: No, they won’t.

  VISITOR: Well then, will either of them be, if they have no association with being?

  THEAETETUS: No.

  VISITOR: It seems that agreeing to that destroys everything right away, both for the people who make everything change, for the ones who make everything an unchanging unit, and for the ones who say that beings are forms that always stay the same and in the same state. All of these people apply being. Some do it when they say that things really are changing, and others do it when they say that things really are at rest.

  THEAETETUS: Absolutely.

  [b] VISITOR: Also there are people who put everything together at one time and divide them at another.19 Some put them together into one and divide them into indefinitely many, and others divide them into a finite number of elements and put them back together out of them. None of these people, regardless of whether they take this to happen in stages or continuously, would be saying anything if there isn’t any blending.

  THEAETETUS: Right.

  VISITOR: But furthermore the most ridiculous account is the one that’s adopted by the people who won’t allow anything to be called by a name that it gets by association with something else.

  [c] THEAETETUS: Why?

  VISITOR: They’re forced to use being about everything, and also separate, from others, of itself, and a million other things. They’re powerless to keep from doing it—that is, from linking them together in their speech. So they don’t need other people to refute them, but have an enemy within, as people say, to contradict them, and they go carrying him around talking in an undertone inside them like the strange ventriloquist Eurycles.20

  [d] THEAETETUS: That’s a very accurate comparison.

  VISITOR: Well then, what if we admit that everything has the capacity to associate with everything else?

  THEAETETUS: I can solve that one.

  VISITOR: How?

  THEAETETUS: Because if change and rest belonged to each other then change would be completely at rest and conversely rest itself would be changing.

  VISITOR: But I suppose it’s ruled out by very strict necessity that change should be at rest and that rest should change.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: So the third option is the only one left.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: Certainly one of the following things has to be the case: either [e] everything is willing to blend, or nothing is, or some things are and some are not.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: And we found that the first two options were impossible.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: So everyone who wants to give the right answer will choose the third.

  THEAETETUS: Absolutely.

  VISITOR: Since some will blend and some won’t, they’ll be a good deal [253] like letters of the alphabet. Some of them fit together with each other and some don’t.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: More than the other letters the vowels run through all of them like a bond, linking them together, so that without a vowel no one of the others can fit with another.

  THEAETETUS: Definitely.

  VISITOR: So does everyone know which kinds of letters can associate with which, or does it take an expert?

  THEAETETUS: It takes an expert.

  VISITOR: What kind?

  THEAETETUS: An expert in grammar.

  VISITOR: Well then, isn’t it the same with high and low notes? The [b] musician is the one with the expertise to know which ones mix and which ones don’t, and the unmusical person is the one who doesn’t understand that.

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: And in other cases of expertise and the lack of it we’ll find something similar.

  THEAETETUS: Of course.

  VISITOR: Well then, we’ve agreed that kinds mix with each other in the same way. So if someone’s going to show us correctly which kinds harmonize with which and which kinds exclude each other, doesn’t he have to have some kind of knowledge as he proceeds through the discussion? And [c] in addition doesn’t he have to know whether there are any kinds that run through all of them and link them together to make them capable of blending, and also, when there are divisions, whether certain kinds running through wholes are always the cause of the division?

  THEAETETUS: Of course that requires knowledge—probably just about the most important kind.

  VISITOR: So, Theaetetus, what shall we label this knowledge? Or for heaven’s sake, without noticing have we stumbled on the knowledge that free people have? Maybe we’ve found the philosopher even though we were looking for the sophist?

  THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

  [d] VISITOR: Aren’t we going to say that it takes expertise in dialectic to divide things by kinds and not to think that the same form is a different one or that a different form is the same?

  THEAETETUS: Yes.

  VISITOR: So if a person can do that, he’ll be capable of adequately discriminating a single form spread out all through a lot of other things, each of which stands separate from the others. In addition he can discriminate forms that are different from each other but are included within
a single form that’s outside them, or a single form that’s connected as a unit throughout many wholes, or many forms that are completely separate [e] from others.21 That’s what it is to know how to discriminate by kinds how things can associate and how they can’t.

  THEAETETUS: Absolutely.

  VISITOR: And you’ll assign this dialectical activity only to someone who has a pure and just love of wisdom.

  THEAETETUS: You certainly couldn’t assign it to anyone else.

  VISITOR: We’ll find that the philosopher will always be in a location like [254] this if we look for him. He’s hard to see clearly too, but not in the same way as the sophist.

  THEAETETUS: Why not?

  VISITOR: The sophist runs off into the darkness of that which is not, which he’s had practice dealing with, and he’s hard to see because the place is so dark. Isn’t that right?

  THEAETETUS: It seems to be.

  VISITOR: But the philosopher always uses reasoning to stay near the form, being. He isn’t at all easy to see because that area is so bright and the eyes [b] of most people’s souls can’t bear to look at what’s divine.

  THEAETETUS: That seems just as right as what you just said before.

  VISITOR: We’ll think about the philosopher more clearly soon if we want to. But as far as the sophist is concerned we obviously shouldn’t give up until we’ve gotten a good enough look at him.

  THEAETETUS: Fine.

  VISITOR: We’ve agreed on this: some kinds will associate with each other and some won’t, some will to a small extent and others will associate a great deal, nothing prevents still others from being all-pervading—from [c] being associated with every one of them. So next let’s pursue our account together this way. Let’s not talk about every form. That way we won’t be thrown off by dealing with too many of them. Instead let’s choose some of the most important ones. First we’ll ask what they’re like, and next we’ll ask about their ability to associate with each other. Even if our grasp of that which is and that which is not isn’t completely clear, our aim will be to avoid being totally without an account of them—so far as that’s allowed by our present line of inquiry—and see whether we can get away with [d] saying that that which is not really is that which is not.

  THEAETETUS: That’s what we have to do.