Complete Works (65 page)

T
HEAETETUS
: Fine.

V
ISITOR
: 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]
T
HEAETETUS
: No, they won’t.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: No.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

[b] V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Right.

V
ISITOR
: 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] T
HEAETETUS
: Why?

V
ISITOR
: 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] T
HEAETETUS
: That’s a very accurate comparison.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: I can solve that one.

V
ISITOR
: How?

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

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: So the third option is the only one left.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Definitely.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: It takes an expert.

V
ISITOR
: What kind?

T
HEAETETUS
: An expert in grammar.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

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

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: 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?

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

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: What do you mean?

[d] V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

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

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

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why not?

V
ISITOR
: 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?

T
HEAETETUS
: It seems to be.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: That seems just as right as what you just said before.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: Fine.

V
ISITOR
: 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.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s what we have to do.

V
ISITOR
: The most important kinds we’ve just been discussing are
that
which is
,
rest
, and
change
.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, by far.

V
ISITOR
: And we say that two of them don’t blend with each other.

T
HEAETETUS
: Definitely not.

V
ISITOR
: But
that which is
blends with both of them, since presumably both of them are.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: We do have three of them.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: So each of them is different from two of them, but is the same as itself.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes. [e]

V
ISITOR
: But what in the world are
the same
and
the different
that we’ve been speaking of? Are they two kinds other than those three but necessarily always blending with them? And do we have to think of them all as being five and not three? Or have what we’ve been calling
the same
and
the
[255]
different
turned out, without our realizing it, to be among those three?

T
HEAETETUS
: Maybe.

V
ISITOR
: But change and rest are certainly not
different
or
the same
.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why not?

V
ISITOR
: Whatever we call change and rest in common can’t be either one of them.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why not?

V
ISITOR
: Then change would rest and rest would change. In both cases, if either change or rest comes to be either same or different, then it will force the other to change to the contrary of its own nature, since it will [b] share in its contrary.

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: And both do share in the same and in the different.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: Then anyway let’s not say that change is the same or the different, nor that rest is.

T
HEAETETUS
: All right.

V
ISITOR
: But do we have to think of
that which is
and the same as one thing?

T
HEAETETUS
: Maybe.

V
ISITOR
: But if
that which is
and the same don’t signify distinct things, [c] then when we say that change and rest both are, we’ll be labeling both of them as being the same.

T
HEAETETUS
: But certainly that’s impossible.

V
ISITOR
: So it’s impossible for
the same
and
that which is
to be one.

T
HEAETETUS
: I suppose so.

V
ISITOR
: Shall we take
the same
as a fourth in addition to the other three forms?

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, do we have to call
the different
a fifth? Or should we think of it and
that which is
as two names for one kind?

T
HEAETETUS
: Maybe.

V
ISITOR
: But I think you’ll admit that some of those which are are said by themselves, but some are always said in relation to other things.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

[d] V
ISITOR
: But
the different
is always said in relation to another, isn’t it?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: But it wouldn’t be if
that which is
and the different weren’t completely distinct. If the different shared in both kinds the way
that which
is
does, then some of the things that are different would be different without being different in relation to anything different. In fact, though, it turns out that whatever is different definitely has to be what it is
from
something that’s different.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s exactly the way it is.

[e] V
ISITOR
: And we do have to call the nature of the different a fifth among the forms we’re choosing.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: And we’re going to say that it pervades all of them, since each of them is different from the others, not because of its own nature but because of sharing in the type of the different.

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: Let’s take up each of the five one by one and say this.