Complete Works (54 page)

[d] S
OCRATES
: Theaetetus, can it be that all in a moment, you and I have today laid hands upon something which many a wise man has searched for in the past—and gone gray before he found it?

T
HEAETETUS
: Well, it does seem to me anyway, Socrates, that what has just been said puts the matter very well.

S
OCRATES
: And it seems likely enough that the matter is really so; for what knowledge could there be apart from an account and correct judgment? But there is one of the things said which I don’t like.

T
HEAETETUS
: And what’s that?

S
OCRATES
: What looks like the subtlest point of all—that the elements [e] are unknowable and the complexes knowable.

T
HEAETETUS
: And won’t that do?

S
OCRATES
: We must make sure; because, you see, we do have as hostages for this theory the original models that were used when all these statements were made.

T
HEAETETUS
: What models?

S
OCRATES
: Letters—the elements of language—and syllables.
⁴⁰
It must have been these, mustn’t it, that the author of our theory had in view—it couldn’t have been anything else?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, he must have been thinking of letters and syllables.

[203]
S
OCRATES
: Let’s take and examine them then. Or rather let us examine ourselves, and ask ourselves whether we really learned our letters in this way or not. Now, to begin with, one can give an account of the syllables but not of the letters—is that it?

T
HEAETETUS
: Well, perhaps.

S
OCRATES
: It most certainly looks like that to me. At any rate, supposing you were asked about the first syllable of ‘Socrates’: ‘Tell me, Theaetetus, what is SO?’ What would you answer to that?

T
HEAETETUS
: That it’s S and O.

S
OCRATES
: And there you have an account of the syllable?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Come along then, and let us have the account of S in the [b] same way.

T
HEAETETUS
: How
can
anyone give the letters of a letter? S is just one of the voiceless letters, Socrates, a mere sound like a hissing of the tongue. B again has neither voice nor sound, and that’s true of most letters. So the statement that they themselves are unaccountable holds perfectly good. Even the seven clearest have only voice; no sort of account whatever can be given of them.
⁴¹

S
OCRATES
: So here, my friend, we have established a point about knowledge.

T
HEAETETUS
: We do appear to have done so.

S
OCRATES
: Well then: we have shown that the syllable is knowable but [c] not the letter—is that all right?

T
HEAETETUS
: It seems the natural conclusion, anyway.

S
OCRATES
: Look here, what do we mean by ‘the syllable’? The two letters (or if there are more, all the letters)? Or do we mean some single form produced by their combination?

T
HEAETETUS
: I think we mean all the letters.

S
OCRATES
: Then take the case of the two letters, S and O; these two are the first syllable of my name. If a man knows the syllable, he must know both the letters?

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course. [d]

S
OCRATES
: So he knows S and O.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: But can it be that he is ignorant of each one, and knows the two of them without knowing either?

T
HEAETETUS
: That would be a strange and unaccountable thing, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: And yet, supposing it is necessary to know each in order to know both, then it is absolutely necessary that anyone who is ever to know a syllable must first get to know the letters. And in admitting this, we shall find that our beautiful theory has taken to its heels and got clean away from us.

T
HEAETETUS
: And very suddenly too. [e]

S
OCRATES
: Yes; we are not keeping a proper watch on it. Perhaps we ought not to have supposed the syllable to be the letters; perhaps we ought to have made it some single form produced out of them, having its own single nature—something different from the letters.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, certainly; that might be more like it.

S
OCRATES
: We must look into the matter; we have no right to betray a great and imposing theory in this faint-hearted manner.

T
HEAETETUS
: Certainly not.

[204]
S
OCRATES
: Then let it be as we are now suggesting. Let the complex be a single form resulting from the combination of the several elements when they fit together; and let this hold both of language and of things in general.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Then it must have no parts.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why is that, now?

S
OCRATES
: Because when a thing has parts, the whole is necessarily all the parts. Or do you mean by ‘the whole’ also a single form arising out of the parts, yet different from all the parts?

T
HEAETETUS
: I do.

[b] S
OCRATES
: Now do you call ‘sum’
⁴²
and ‘whole’ the same thing or different things?

T
HEAETETUS
: I don’t feel at all certain; but as you keep telling me to answer up with a good will, I will take a risk and say they are different.

S
OCRATES
: Your good will, Theaetetus, is all that it should be. Now we must see if your answer is too.

T
HEAETETUS
: We must, of course.

S
OCRATES
: As the argument stands at present, the whole will be different from the sum?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well now, is there any difference between all the things and [c] the sum? For instance, when we say ‘one, two, three, four, five, six’; or, ‘twice three’, or ‘three times two’, ‘four and two’, ‘three and two and one’; are we speaking of the same thing in all these cases or different things?

T
HEAETETUS
: The same thing.

S
OCRATES
: That is, six?

T
HEAETETUS
: Precisely.

S
OCRATES
: Then with each expression have we not spoken of all the six?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And when we speak of them all, aren’t we speaking of a sum?

T
HEAETETUS
: We must be.

S
OCRATES
: That is, six?

T
HEAETETUS
: Precisely.

[d] S
OCRATES
: Then in all things made up of number, at any rate, by ‘the sum’ and ‘all of them’ we mean the same thing?

T
HEAETETUS
: So it seems.

S
OCRATES
: Now let us talk about them in this way. The number of an acre is the same thing as an acre, isn’t it?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Similarly with a mile.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And the number of an army is the same as the army? And so always with things of this sort; their total number is the sum that each of them is.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: But is the number of each anything other than its parts? [e]

T
HEAETETUS
: No.

S
OCRATES
: Now things which have parts consist of parts?

T
HEAETETUS
: That seems true.

S
OCRATES
: And it is agreed that all the parts are the sum, seeing that the total number is to be the sum.

T
HEAETETUS
: That is so.

S
OCRATES
: Then the whole does not consist of parts. For if it did, it would be all the parts and so would be a sum.

T
HEAETETUS
: It looks as if it doesn’t.

S
OCRATES
: But can a part, as such, be a part of anything but the whole?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes; of the sum.

S
OCRATES
: You are putting up a good fight anyway, Theaetetus. But this
[205]
sum now—isn’t it just when there is nothing lacking that it is a sum?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, necessarily.

S
OCRATES
: And won’t this very same thing—that from which nothing anywhere is lacking—be a whole? While a thing from which something is absent is neither a whole nor a sum—the same consequence having followed from the same condition in both cases at once?

T
HEAETETUS
: Well, it doesn’t seem to me now that there can be any difference between whole and sum.

S
OCRATES
: Very well. Now were we not saying
⁴³
that in the case of a thing that has parts, both the whole and the sum will be all the parts?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Now come back to the thing I was trying to get at just now.
⁴⁴
Supposing the syllable is not just its letters, doesn’t it follow that it cannot [b] contain the letters as parts of itself? Alternatively, if it is the same as the letters, it must be equally knowable with them?

T
HEAETETUS
: That is so.

S
OCRATES
: Well, wasn’t it just in order to avoid this result that we supposed it different from the letters?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, if the letters are not parts of the syllable, can you tell me of any other things, not its letters, which are?

T
HEAETETUS
: No, indeed. If I were to admit that it had component parts, Socrates, it would be ridiculous, of course, to set aside the letters and look for other components.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Then, Theaetetus, according to our present argument, a syllable is an absolutely single form, indivisible into parts.

T
HEAETETUS
: It looks like it.

S
OCRATES
: Now, my friend, a little while ago, if you remember, we were inclined to accept a certain proposition which we thought put the matter very well—I mean the statement that no account can be given of the primaries of which other things are constituted, because each of them is in itself incomposite; and that it would be incorrect to apply even the term ‘being’ to it when we spoke of it or the term ‘this’, because these terms signify different and alien things; and that is the reason why a primary is an unaccountable and unknowable thing. Do you remember?

T
HEAETETUS
: I remember.

[d] S
OCRATES
: And is that the reason also why it is single in form and indivisible into parts or is there some other reason for that?
⁴⁵
I can see no other myself.

T
HEAETETUS
: No, there really doesn’t seem to be any other.

S
OCRATES
: And hasn’t the complex now fallen into the same class as the primary, seeing it has no parts and is a single form?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, it certainly has.

S
OCRATES
: Well now, if the complex is both many elements and a whole, with them as its parts, then both complexes and elements are equally capable of being known and expressed, since all the parts turned out to be the same thing as the whole.

[e] T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, surely.

S
OCRATES
: But if, on the other hand, the complex is single and without parts, then complexes and elements are equally unaccountable and unknowable—both of them for the same reason.

T
HEAETETUS
: I can’t dispute that.

S
OCRATES
: Then if anyone tries to tell us that the complex can be known and expressed, while the contrary is true of the element, we had better not listen to him.

T
HEAETETUS
: No, we’d better not, if we go along with the argument.

[206]
S
OCRATES
: And, more than this, wouldn’t you more easily believe somebody who made the contrary statement, because of what you know of your own experience in learning to read and write?

T
HEAETETUS
: What kind of thing do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: I mean that when you were learning you spent your time just precisely in trying to distinguish, by both eye and ear, each individual letter in itself so that you might not be bewildered by their different positions in written and spoken words.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s perfectly true.

S
OCRATES
: And at the music-teacher’s, wasn’t the finished pupil the one who would follow each note and tell to which string it belonged—the [b] notes being generally admitted to be the elements in music?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, that’s just what it amounted to.

S
OCRATES
: Then if the proper procedure is to take such elements and complexes as we ourselves have experience of, and make an inference from them to the rest, we shall say that the elements are much more clearly known, and the knowledge of them is more decisive for the mastery of any branch of study than knowledge of the complex. And if anyone maintains that the complex is by nature knowable, and the element unknowable, we shall regard this as tomfoolery, whether it is intended to be or not.