Theaetetus Part 20

SOCRATES: And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we are at our wits' end, suppose that we do a shameless thing?

THEAETETUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: Let us attempt to explain the verb 'to know.'

THEAETETUS: And why should that be shameless?

SOCRATES: You seem not to be aware that the whole of our discussion from the very beginning has been a search after knowledge, of which we are a.s.sumed not to know the nature.

THEAETETUS: Nay, but I am well aware.

SOCRATES: And is it not shameless when we do not know what knowledge is, to be explaining the verb 'to know'? The truth is, Theaetetus, that we have long been infected with logical impurity. Thousands of times have we repeated the words 'we know,' and 'do not know,' and 'we have or have not science or knowledge,' as if we could understand what we are saying to one another, so long as we remain ignorant about knowledge; and at this moment we are using the words 'we understand,' 'we are ignorant,'

as though we could still employ them when deprived of knowledge or science.

THEAETETUS: But if you avoid these expressions, Socrates, how will you ever argue at all?

SOCRATES: I could not, being the man I am. The case would be different if I were a true hero of dialectic: and O that such an one were present!

for he would have told us to avoid the use of these terms; at the same time he would not have spared in you and me the faults which I have noted. But, seeing that we are no great wits, shall I venture to say what knowing is? for I think that the attempt may be worth making.

THEAETETUS: Then by all means venture, and no one shall find fault with you for using the forbidden terms.

SOCRATES: You have heard the common explanation of the verb 'to know'?

THEAETETUS: I think so, but I do not remember it at the moment.

SOCRATES: They explain the word 'to know' as meaning 'to have knowledge.'

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: I should like to make a slight change, and say 'to possess'

knowledge.

THEAETETUS: How do the two expressions differ?

SOCRATES: Perhaps there may be no difference; but still I should like you to hear my view, that you may help me to test it.

THEAETETUS: I will, if I can.

SOCRATES: I should distinguish 'having' from 'possessing': for example, a man may buy and keep under his control a garment which he does not wear; and then we should say, not that he has, but that he possesses the garment.

THEAETETUS: It would be the correct expression.

SOCRATES: Well, may not a man 'possess' and yet not 'have' knowledge in the sense of which I am speaking? As you may suppose a man to have caught wild birds--doves or any other birds--and to be keeping them in an aviary which he has constructed at home; we might say of him in one sense, that he always has them because he possesses them, might we not?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And yet, in another sense, he has none of them; but they are in his power, and he has got them under his hand in an enclosure of his own, and can take and have them whenever he likes;--he can catch any which he likes, and let the bird go again, and he may do so as often as he pleases.

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: Once more, then, as in what preceded we made a sort of waxen figment in the mind, so let us now suppose that in the mind of each man there is an aviary of all sorts of birds--some flocking together apart from the rest, others in small groups, others solitary, flying anywhere and everywhere.

THEAETETUS: Let us imagine such an aviary--and what is to follow?

SOCRATES: We may suppose that the birds are kinds of knowledge, and that when we were children, this receptacle was empty; whenever a man has gotten and detained in the enclosure a kind of knowledge, he may be said to have learned or discovered the thing which is the subject of the knowledge: and this is to know.

THEAETETUS: Granted.

SOCRATES: And further, when any one wishes to catch any of these knowledges or sciences, and having taken, to hold it, and again to let them go, how will he express himself?--will he describe the 'catching'

of them and the original 'possession' in the same words? I will make my meaning clearer by an example:--You admit that there is an art of arithmetic?

THEAETETUS: To be sure.

SOCRATES: Conceive this under the form of a hunt after the science of odd and even in general.

THEAETETUS: I follow.

SOCRATES: Having the use of the art, the arithmetician, if I am not mistaken, has the conceptions of number under his hand, and can transmit them to another.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And when transmitting them he may be said to teach them, and when receiving to learn them, and when receiving to learn them, and when having them in possession in the aforesaid aviary he may be said to know them.

THEAETETUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Attend to what follows: must not the perfect arithmetician know all numbers, for he has the science of all numbers in his mind?

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: And he can reckon abstract numbers in his head, or things about him which are numerable?

THEAETETUS: Of course he can.

SOCRATES: And to reckon is simply to consider how much such and such a number amounts to?

THEAETETUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And so he appears to be searching into something which he knows, as if he did not know it, for we have already admitted that he knows all numbers;--you have heard these perplexing questions raised?

THEAETETUS: I have.

SOCRATES: May we not pursue the image of the doves, and say that the chase after knowledge is of two kinds? one kind is prior to possession and for the sake of possession, and the other for the sake of taking and holding in the hands that which is possessed already. And thus, when a man has learned and known something long ago, he may resume and get hold of the knowledge which he has long possessed, but has not at hand in his mind.

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: That was my reason for asking how we ought to speak when an arithmetician sets about numbering, or a grammarian about reading? Shall we say, that although he knows, he comes back to himself to learn what he already knows?

THEAETETUS: It would be too absurd, Socrates.