Complete Works (39 page)

C
RATYLUS
: I think we are, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Let’s not investigate whether a particular face or something of that sort is beautiful then, or whether all such things seem to be flowing, but let’s ask this instead: Are we to say that the beautiful itself is always such as it is?

C
RATYLUS
: Absolutely.

S
OCRATES
: But if it is always passing away, can we correctly say of it first that it is
this
, and then that it is
such and such
? Or, at the very instant we are speaking, isn’t it inevitably and immediately becoming a different thing and altering and no longer being as it was?

C
RATYLUS
: It is.

S
OCRATES
: Then if it never stays the same, how can it
be
something? After [e] all, if it ever stays the same, it clearly isn’t changing—at least, not during that time; and if it always stays the same and is always the same thing, so that it never departs from its own form, how can it ever change or move?

C
RATYLUS
: There’s no way.

S
OCRATES
: Then again it can’t even be known by anyone. For at the very instant the knower-to-be approaches, what he is approaching is becoming a different thing, of a different character, so that he can’t yet come to know
[440]
either what sort of thing it is or what it is like—surely, no kind of knowledge is knowledge of what isn’t in any way.

C
RATYLUS
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Indeed, it isn’t even reasonable to say that there is such a thing as knowledge, Cratylus, if all things are passing on and none remain. For if that thing itself, knowledge, did not pass on from being knowledge, then knowledge would always remain, and there would
be
such a thing as knowledge. On the other hand, if the very form of knowledge passed on from being knowledge, the instant it passed on into a different form [b] than that of knowledge, there would be no knowledge. And if it were always passing on, there would always be no knowledge. Hence, on this account, no one could know anything and nothing could be known either. But if there is always that which knows and that which is known, if there are such things as the beautiful, the good, and each one of the things that are, it doesn’t appear to me that these things can be at all like flowings or motions, as we were saying just now they were. So whether I’m right about these things or whether the truth lies with Heraclitus and many [c] others
⁶⁴
isn’t an easy matter to investigate. But surely no one with any understanding will commit himself or the cultivation of his soul to names, or trust them and their givers to the point of firmly stating that he knows something—condemning both himself and the things that are to be totally unsound like leaky sinks—or believe that things are exactly like people
[440d]
with runny noses, or that all things are afflicted with colds and drip over everything. It’s certainly possible that things are that way, Cratylus, but it is also possible that they are not. So you must investigate them courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything easily—you are still young and in your prime, after all. Then after you’ve investigated them, if you happen to discover the truth, you can share it with me.

C
RATYLUS
: I’ll do that. But I assure you, Socrates, that I have already investigated them and have taken a lot of trouble over the matter, and [e] things seem to me to be very much more as Heraclitus says they are.

S
OCRATES
: Instruct me about it another time, Cratylus, after you get back. But now go off into the country, as you were planning to do, and Hermogenes here will see you on your way.
⁶⁵

C
RATYLUS
: I’ll do that, Socrates, but I hope that you will also continue to think about these matters yourself.

1
. Hermes is the god of profit and ‘Hermogenes’ means ‘son of Hermes.’ A different account of the name is given at 407e–408b.

2
. Reading
ho ean th
ē
i kalein
in a2.

3
. Following Schofield,
Classical Quarterly
22 (1972), we transfer 385b2–d1 to follow 387c5.

4
. Plato is making a pun on the title of Protagoras’ book.

5
. Here we insert 385b2–d1; see note to 385b above.

6
. The Greek here is
ho nomos:
law or customary usage—itself established, as Socrates immediately goes on to say, by a
nomothet
ē
s,
usually a legislator or law-giver, but here someone who establishes the rules of usage that give significance to names, a ‘rule-setter.’

7
. Reading
agnoein
in e1.

8
.
Iliad
xxi.332–80 and xx.74.

9
.
Iliad
xiv.291.

10
.
Iliad
ii.813 ff.

11
.
Iliad
vi.402–3.

12
.
Iliad
xxii.506.

13
.
Iliad
xxii.507, referring to Hector.

14
. The names ‘epsilon’, ‘upsilon’, ‘omicron’ (short
o
), and ‘omega’ (long
o
) were not used in Plato’s time; one simply pronounced the sound.

15
. ‘
Zeus
’ (nominative) has two declensions, one of which (a poetical one) has ‘
Z
ē
na
’ in the accusative, the other (the ordinary one) ‘
Dia
’.

16
. Socrates is treating Cronus’ name as deriving not from ‘
koros
’ but from ‘
korein
’ (‘to sweep’). Cronus’ character is spotless and his intelligence clear because both have been well swept.

17
. This is probably the Euthyphro who appears in the dialogue of that name, where he is described as claiming authority on Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus (
Euthyphro
4e–5a, 5e–6a).

18
. Daemons are gods or children of the gods (
Apology
27d–e) or messengers from the gods (
Symposium
202e).

19
. Reading
ē
d
ē
lon d
ē
hoti daimonas te kai h
ē
r
ō
as kai anthr
ō
pous?
in d9–e1, attributing these words to Socrates.

20
. Attributing
daimonas
in e1 to Hermogenes.

21
.
Works and Days
, 121–23, with minor variations.

22
. Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, usually received the first part of a sacrifice and was named first in prayers and (often) in oaths.

23
. Frg. 91 (Diels-Kranz).

24
. ‘Rhea’ sounds a lot like ‘
rheuma
’ (‘stream’); apparently Socrates expects Hermogenes to hear ‘Cronus’ as connected with ‘
krounos
’ (‘spring’).

25
.
Iliad
xiv.201, 302.

26
. Frg. 15 (Kern).

27
. Cronus, the father of Posidon and Zeus, was dethroned by the latter and chained by him in Tartarus, the deepest part of Hades. See
Iliad
xiv.203–4.

28
. Presumably because they see it as meaning ‘who brings carnage’ (
pherein phonon
).

29
. They connect ‘Apollo’ with ‘
apollu
ō
n
’ (‘who destroys’).

30
. Removing the brackets in c7.

31
. ‘
Apol
ō
n
’ means ‘destroying utterly’, ‘killing’, ‘slaying’.

32
.
Theogony
195–97.

33
. I.e., ‘
ha theonoa
’ or ‘Athena’ is derived thus: delete ‘
sis
’ from ‘
theou no
ē
sis
’, yielding a single word ‘
theouno
ē
’; add the feminine article in its non-Attic style and change ‘
ē
’ to ‘
a
’ to get ‘
ha theounoa
’. Since at this time there was not the distinction we now make between ‘
o
’ and ‘
ou
’, we get ‘
ha theonoa
’.

34
.
Iliad
v.221–22. For Euthyphro, see 396d.

35
. See 398d.

36
. A dithyramb is a choral song to the god Dionysus, noted for its complex and pompous language.

37
. Removing the brackets in b5–6.

38
. See 395e ff.

39
. The skin of the Nemean lion worn by Heracles.

40
. Frg. 12 (Diels-Kranz).

41
. Resulting in ‘
echono
ē
’.

42
. Because it interrupts the sequence ‘
opto
’, suggesting a verb for seeing.

43
. Hesiod uses the latter form of the name at
Theogony
326. Popular etymology inappropriately connects ‘
Sphinx
’ with a verb meaning ‘to torture’. ‘
Phix
’, the Boeotian form of the word, connects it more appropriately with Mount Phikion in Boeotia, because of the special association of the Sphinx with Thebes.

44
. See 390b ff.

45
.
Iliad
vi.265.

46
. See 409d.

47
. See 412a ff.

48
. See 409d, 416a.

49
. A proverbial expression. See
Laws
751d.

50
. See 412b–c.

51
. See 401a.

52
.
Works and Days
, 361.

53
.
Iliad
ix.644–45.

54
.
Iliad
i.343.

55
. See 388d ff.

56
. See 393d–e.

57
. See 432a.

58
. At 414c.

59
. See 411c.

60
. As was suggested at 412a, yielding something to do with “following” things.

61
. To get ‘
epihist
ē
m
ē
’, revealing more clearly the derivation from ‘
epi
’ and ‘
hist
ē
si
’.

62
. ‘
Hamartia
’ is like ‘
homartein
’ (‘to accompany’), and ‘
sumphora
’ is like ‘
sumpheresthai
’ (‘to move together with’).

63
. At 435d.

64
. See 402a.

65
. ‘See on your way’ (
propempsei
): as a good son of Hermes
pompaios
(who conducts souls of the dead to Hades) would do. Hermogenes is thus correctly named after all. See 384c, 408b.

THEAETETUS

Translated by M. J. Levett, revised by Myles Burnyeat.

Plato has much to say in other dialogues about knowledge, but this is his only
sustained inquiry into the question ‘What
is
knowledge?’ As such, it is the
founding document of what has come to be known as ‘epistemology’, as one of
the branches of philosophy; its influence on Greek epistemology—in Aristotle
and the Stoics particularly—is strongly marked. Theaetetus was a famous
mathematician, Plato’s associate for many years in the Academy; the dialogue’s
prologue seems to announce the work as published in his memory, shortly after
his early death on military service in 369
B.C.
We can therefore date the publication
of
Theaetetus
fairly precisely, to the few years immediately following
Theaetetus’ death. Plato was then about sixty years of age, and another famous
longtime associate, Aristotle, was just joining the Academy as a student (367).

Though it is not counted as a ‘Socratic’ dialogue—one depicting Socrates inquiring
into moral questions by examining and refuting the opinions of his fellow
discussants—
Theaetetus
depicts a Socrates who makes much of his own
ignorance and his subordinate position as questioner, and the dialogue concludes
inconclusively. Socrates now describes his role, however, as he does not
in the ‘Socratic’ dialogues, as that of a ‘midwife’: he brings to expression ideas
of clever young men like Theaetetus, extensively develops their presuppositions
and consequences so as to see clearly what the ideas amount to, and then establishes
them as sound or defective by independent arguments of his own. The
first of Theaetetus’ three successive definitions of knowledge—that knowledge is
‘perception’—is not finally ‘brought to birth’ until Socrates has linked it to Protagoras’
famous ‘man is the measure’ doctrine of relativistic truth, and also to
the theory that ‘all is motion and change’ that Socrates finds most Greek thinkers
of the past had accepted, and until he has fitted it out with an elaborate
and ingenious theory of perception and how it works. He then examines separately
the truth of these linked doctrines—introduced into the discussion by
him, not Theaetetus—and, in finally rejecting Theaetetus’ idea as unsound, he
advances his own positive analysis of perception and its role in knowledge.
This emphasis on the systematic exploration of ideas before finally committing
oneself to them or rejecting them as unsound is found in a different guise in
Parmenides,
with its systematic exploration of hypotheses about unity as a
means of working hard toward an acceptable theory of Forms. Socrates establishes
a clear link between the two dialogues when, at 183e, he drags in a reference
back to the conversation reported in
Parmenides
.

Theaetetus
has a unique format among Plato’s dialogues. The prologue
gives a brief conversation between Euclides and Terpsion, Socratics from
nearby Megara (they are among those present for the discussion on Socrates’
last day in
Phaedo
). For the remainder, a slave reads out a book composed by
Euclides containing a conversation of Socrates, Theodorus, and Theaetetus that
took place many years previously. Since ancient sources tell us of Socratic dialogues
actually published by Euclides, it is as if, except for the prologue, Plato
is giving us under his own name one of
Euclides
’ dialogues! The last line of
the work establishes it as the first of a series, with
Sophist
and
Statesman
to
follow—as noted above,
Parmenides
precedes. In
Theaetetus
Socrates tests
Theaetetus’ mettle with the geometer Theodorus’ aid and in the presence of his
namesake Socrates, another associate of Plato’s in the Academy; in the other
two works, first Theaetetus, then young Socrates will be discussion partners
with an unnamed visitor from Elea, in Southern Italy, home to Parmenides
and Zeno—a very different type of partner. Socrates and his midwifery are superseded.