Complete Works (41 page)

T
HEAETETUS
: And what does that mean, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: Nothing, I dare say. But I’ll tell you what I think. When you talk about cobbling, you mean just knowledge of the making of shoes?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, that’s all I mean by it.

S
OCRATES
: And when you talk about carpentering, you mean simply the [e] knowledge of the making of wooden furniture?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, that’s all I mean, again.

S
OCRATES
: And in both cases you are putting into your definition what the knowledge is of?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: But that is not what you were asked, Theaetetus. You were not asked to say what one may have knowledge of, or how many branches of knowledge there are. It was not with any idea of counting these up that the question was asked; we wanted to know what knowledge itself is.—Or am I talking nonsense?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, you are perfectly right.

S
OCRATES
: Now think about this too. Supposing we were asked about
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some commonplace, everyday thing; for example, what is clay? And supposing we were to answer, ‘clay of the potters’ and ‘clay of the stovemakers’ and ‘clay of the brickmakers’, wouldn’t that be absurd of us?

T
HEAETETUS
: Well, perhaps it would.

S
OCRATES
: Absurd to begin with, I suppose, to imagine that the person who asked the question would understand anything from our answer when we say ‘clay’, whether we add that it is dollmakers’ clay or any [b] other craftsman’s. Or do you think that anyone can understand the name of a thing when he doesn’t know what the thing is?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: And so a man who does not know what knowledge is will not understand ‘knowledge of shoes’ either?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, he won’t.

S
OCRATES
: Then a man who is ignorant of what knowledge is will not understand what cobbling is, or any other craft?

T
HEAETETUS
: That is so.

S
OCRATES
: So when the question raised is ‘What is knowledge?’, to reply by naming one of the crafts is an absurd answer; because it points out [c] something that knowledge is of when this is not what the question was about.

T
HEAETETUS
: So it seems.

S
OCRATES
: Again, it goes no end of a long way round, in a case where, I take it, a short and commonplace answer is possible. In the question about clay, for example, it would presumably be possible to make the simple, commonplace statement that it is earth mixed with liquid, and let the question of whose clay it is take care of itself.

T
HEAETETUS
: That seems easier, Socrates, now you put it like that. But I believe you’re asking just the sort of question that occurred to your namesake [d] Socrates here and myself, when we were having a discussion a little while ago.

S
OCRATES
: And what was that, Theaetetus?

T
HEAETETUS
: Theodorus here was demonstrating to us with the aid of diagrams a point about powers.
²
He was showing us that the power of three square feet and the power of five square feet are not commensurable in length with the power of one square foot; and he went on in this way, taking each case in turn till he came to the power of seventeen square feet; there for some reason he stopped. So the idea occurred to us that, since the powers were turning out to be unlimited in number, we might try to collect the powers in [e] question under one term, which would apply to them all.

S
OCRATES
: And did you find the kind of thing you wanted?

T
HEAETETUS
: I think we did. But I’d like you to see if it’s all right.

S
OCRATES
: Go on, then.

T
HEAETETUS
: We divided all numbers into two classes. Any number which can be produced by the multiplication of two equal numbers, we compared to a square in shape, and we called this a square or equilateral number.

S
OCRATES
: Good, so far.

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T
HEAETETUS
: Then we took the intermediate numbers, such as three and five and any number which can’t be produced by multiplication of two equals but only by multiplying together a greater and a less; a number such that it is always contained by a greater and a less side. A number of this kind we compared to an oblong figure, and called it an oblong number.

S
OCRATES
: That’s excellent. But how did you go on?

T
HEAETETUS
: We defined under the term ‘length’ any line which produces in square an equilateral plane number; while any line which produces in square an oblong number we defined under the term ‘power’, for the [b] reason that although it is incommensurable with the former in length, it is commensurable in the plane figures which they respectively have the power to produce. And there is another distinction of the same sort with regard to solids.

S
OCRATES
: Excellent, my boys. I don’t think Theodorus is likely to be had up for false witness.

T
HEAETETUS
: And yet, Socrates, I shouldn’t be able to answer your question about knowledge in the same way that I answered the one about lengths and powers—though you seem to me to be looking for something of the same sort. So Theodorus turns out a false witness after all.

S
OCRATES
: Well, but suppose now it was your running he had praised; [c] suppose he had said that he had never met anyone among the young people who was such a runner as you. And then suppose you were beaten by the champion runner in his prime—would you think Theodorus’ praise had lost any of its truth?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, I shouldn’t.

S
OCRATES
: But do you think the discovery of what knowledge is is really what I was saying just now—a small thing? Don’t you think that’s a problem for the people at the top?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, rather, I do; and the very topmost of them.

S
OCRATES
: Then do have confidence in yourself and try to believe that Theodorus knew what he was talking about. You must put your whole [d] heart into what we are doing—in particular into this matter of getting a statement of what knowledge really is.

T
HEAETETUS
: If putting one’s heart into it is all that is required, Socrates, the answer will come to light.

S
OCRATES
: Go on, then. You gave us a good lead just now. Try to imitate your answer about the powers. There you brought together the many powers within a single form; now I want you in the same way to give one single account of the many branches of knowledge.

T
HEAETETUS
: But I assure you, Socrates, I have often tried to think this [e] out, when I have heard reports of the questions you ask. But I can never persuade myself that anything I say will really do; and I never hear anyone else state the matter in the way that you require. And yet, again, you know, I can’t even stop worrying about it.

S
OCRATES
: Yes; those are the pains of labor, dear Theaetetus. It is because you are not barren but pregnant.

T
HEAETETUS
: I don’t know about that, Socrates. I’m only telling you what’s happened to me.

S
OCRATES
: Then do you mean to say you’ve never heard about my being
[149]
the son of a good hefty midwife, Phaenarete?
³

T
HEAETETUS
: Oh, yes, I’ve heard that before.

S
OCRATES
: And haven’t you ever been told that I practice the same art myself?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, I certainly haven’t.

S
OCRATES
: But I do, believe me. Only don’t give me away to the rest of the world, will you? You see, my friend, it is a secret that I have this art. That is not one of the things you hear people saying about me, because they don’t know; but they do say that I am a very odd sort of person, always causing people to get into difficulties. You must have heard that, surely?

[b] T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, I have.

S
OCRATES
: And shall I tell you what is the explanation of that?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, please do.

S
OCRATES
: Well, if you will just think of the general facts about the business of midwifery, you will see more easily what I mean. You know, I suppose, that women never practice as midwives while they are still conceiving and bearing children themselves. It is only those who are past child-bearing who take this up.

T
HEAETETUS
: Oh, yes.

S
OCRATES
: They say it was Artemis who was responsible for this custom; [c] it was because she, who undertook the patronage of childbirth, was herself childless. She didn’t, it’s true, entrust the duties of midwifery to barren women, because human nature is too weak to acquire skill where it has no experience. But she assigned the task to those who have become incapable of child-bearing through age—honoring their likeness to herself.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, naturally.

S
OCRATES
: And this too is very natural, isn’t it?—or perhaps necessary? I mean that it is the midwives who can tell better than anyone else whether women are pregnant or not.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, of course.

[d] S
OCRATES
: And then it is the midwives who have the power to bring on the pains, and also, if they think fit, to relieve them; they do it by the use of simple drugs, and by singing incantations. In difficult cases, too, they can bring about the birth; or, if they consider it advisable, they can promote a miscarriage.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, that is so.

S
OCRATES
: There’s another thing too. Have you noticed this about them, that they are the cleverest of match-makers, because they are marvellously knowing about the kind of couples whose marriage will produce the best children?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, that is not at all familiar to me.

S
OCRATES
: But they are far prouder of this, believe me, than of cutting [e] the umbilical cord. Think now. There’s an art which is concerned with the cultivation and harvesting of the crops. Now is it the same art which prescribes the best soil for planting or sowing a given crop? Or is it a different one?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, it is all the same art.

S
OCRATES
: Then applying this to women, will there be one art of the sowing and another of the harvesting?

T
HEAETETUS
: That doesn’t seem likely, certainly.

S
OCRATES
: No, it doesn’t. But there is also an unlawful and unscientific
[150]
practice of bringing men and women together, which we call procuring; and because of that the midwives—a most august body of women—are very reluctant to undertake even lawful matchmaking. They are afraid that if they practice this, they may be suspected of the other. And yet, I suppose, reliable matchmaking is a matter for no one but the true midwife.

T
HEAETETUS
: Apparently.

S
OCRATES
: So the work of the midwives is a highly important one; but it is not so important as my own performance. And for this reason, that there is not in midwifery the further complication, that the patients are [b] sometimes delivered of phantoms and sometimes of realities, and that the two are hard to distinguish. If there were, then the midwife’s greatest and noblest function would be to distinguish the true from the false offspring—don’t you agree?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: Now my art of midwifery is just like theirs in most respects. The difference is that I attend men and not women, and that I watch over the labor of their souls, not of their bodies. And the most important thing [c] about my art is the ability to apply all possible tests to the offspring, to determine whether the young mind is being delivered of a phantom, that is, an error, or a fertile truth. For one thing which I have in common with the ordinary midwives is that I myself am barren of wisdom. The common reproach against me is that I am always asking questions of other people but never express my own views about anything, because there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough. And the reason of it is this, that God compels me to attend the travail of others, but has forbidden me to procreate. So that I am not in any sense a wise man; I cannot claim as the [d] child of my own soul any discovery worth the name of wisdom. But with those who associate with me it is different. At first some of them may give the impression of being ignorant and stupid; but as time goes on and our association continues, all whom God permits are seen to make progress—a progress which is amazing both to other people and to themselves. And yet it is clear that this is not due to anything they have learned from me; it is that they discover within themselves a multitude of beautiful things, which they bring forth into the light. But it is I, with God’s help, who deliver them of this offspring. And a proof of this may be seen in the [e] many cases where people who did not realize this fact took all the credit to themselves and thought that I was no good. They have then proceeded to leave me sooner than they should, either of their own accord or through the influence of others. And after they have gone away from me they have resorted to harmful company, with the result that what remained within them has miscarried; while they have neglected the children I helped them to bring forth, and lost them, because they set more value upon lies and phantoms than upon the truth; finally they have been set down for ignorant fools, both by themselves and by everybody else. One of these people was
[151]
Aristides the son of Lysimachus;
⁴
and there have been very many others. Sometimes they come back, wanting my company again, and ready to move heaven and earth to get it. When that happens, in some cases the divine sign that visits me forbids me to associate with them; in others, it permits me, and then they begin again to make progress.