Complete Works (64 page)

T
HEAETETUS
: That pretty much describes their thinking.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Like what? Tell me and maybe we’ll know.

V
ISITOR
: 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
.

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

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

T
HEAETETUS
: All right.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: All right.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: “Yes.”

V
ISITOR
: 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] T
HEAETETUS
: “We do say that.”

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: “What?”

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Then what account do they give?

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

T
HEAETETUS
: What’s that?

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Is there anything to that?

[d] V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: “Yes,” they say.

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: Obviously that neither is a case of either, since otherwise they’d be saying something contrary to what they said before.

[e] V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s correct.

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: If we did, sir, we’d be admitting something frightening.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course not.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: How else would it have them?

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: All that seems completely unreasonable. [b]

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely not.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why?

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Not at all.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Not in the least.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Definitely.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: True.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

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

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

V
ISITOR
: 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.

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

V
ISITOR
: 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
?

T
HEAETETUS
: What was it? Remind me.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Good.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

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

[b] T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Not at all.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course not.

V
ISITOR
: 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] T
HEAETETUS
: 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.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: It seems so.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: I suppose it doesn’t.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: I don’t know.

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely not.

V
ISITOR
: In this connection we ought to remember the following.

T
HEAETETUS
: What?

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: And now aren’t we in just as much confusion about
that
[e]
which is
?

T
HEAETETUS
: We seem to be in even more confusion, if that’s possible.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Fine.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: What, for instance? Give me an example.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s true.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: What questions do you mean?

V
ISITOR
: 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]

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

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