Dialogues

and indivisible? I can see no other. Theaetetus No other reason can be given. Socrates Then is not the syllable in the same case as the elements or letters, if it has no parts and is one form? Theaetetus To be sure. Socrates If, then, a syllable is a whole, and has many parts or letters, the letters as well as the syllable must be intelligible and expressible, since all the parts are acknowledged to be the same as the whole? Theaetetus True. Socrates But if it be one and indivisible, then the syllables and the letters are alike undefined and unknown, and for the same reason? Theaetetus I cannot deny that. Socrates We cannot, therefore, agree in the opinion of him who says that the syllable can be known and expressed, but not the letters. Theaetetus Certainly not; if we may trust the argument. Socrates Well, but will you not be equally inclined to disagree with him, when you remember your own experience in learning to read? Theaetetus What experience? Socrates Why, that in learning you were kept trying to distinguish the separate letters both by the eye and by the ear, in order that, when you heard them spoken or saw them written, you might not be confused by their position. Theaetetus Very true. Socrates And is the education of the harp-player complete unless he can tell what string answers to a particular note; the notes, as everyone would allow, are the elements or letters of music? Theaetetus Exactly. Socrates Then, if we argue from the letters and syllables which we know to other simples and compounds, we shall say that the letters or simple elements as a class are much more certainly known than the syllables, and much more indispensable to a perfect knowledge of any subject; and if someone says that the syllable is known and the letter unknown, we shall consider that either intentionally or unintentionally he is talking nonsense? Theaetetus Exactly. Socrates And there might be given other proofs of this belief, if I am not mistaken. But do not let us in looking for them lose sight of the question before us, which is the meaning of the statement, that right opinion with rational definition or explanation is the most perfect form of knowledge. Theaetetus We must not. Socrates Well, and what is the meaning of the term “explanation”? I think that we have a choice of three meanings. Theaetetus What are they? Socrates In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting one’s thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the stream which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not explanation appear to be of this nature? Theaetetus Certainly; he who so manifests his thought, is said to explain himself. Socrates And everyone who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or later to manifest what he thinks of anything; and if so, all those who have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation; nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge. Theaetetus True. Socrates Let us not, therefore, hastily charge him who gave this account of knowledge with uttering an unmeaning word; for perhaps he only intended to say, that when a person was asked what was the nature of anything, he should be able to answer his questioner by giving the elements of the thing. Theaetetus As for example, Socrates⁠ ⁠… ? Socrates As, for example, when Hesiod says that a wagon is made up of a hundred planks. Now, neither you nor I could describe all of them individually; but if anyone asked what is a wagon, we should be content to answer, that a wagon consists of wheels, axle, body, rims, yoke. Theaetetus Certainly. Socrates And our opponent will probably laugh at us, just as he would if we professed to be grammarians and to give a grammatical account of the name of Theaetetus, and yet could only tell the syllables and not the letters of your name⁠—that would be true opinion, and not knowledge; for knowledge, as has been already remarked, is not attained until, combined with true opinion, there is an enumeration of the elements out of which anything is composed. Theaetetus Yes. Socrates In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about a wagon; but he who can describe its essence by an enumeration of the hundred planks, adds rational explanation to true opinion, and instead of opinion has art and knowledge of the nature of a wagon, in that he attains to the whole through the elements. Theaetetus And do you not agree in that view, Socrates? Socrates If you do, my friend; but I want to know first, whether you admit the resolution of all things into their elements to be a rational explanation of them, and the consideration of them in syllables or larger combinations of them to be irrational⁠—is this your view? Theaetetus Precisely. Socrates Well, and do you conceive that a man has knowledge of any element who at one time affirms and at another time denies that element of something, or thinks that the same thing is composed of different elements at different times? Theaetetus Assuredly not. Socrates And do you not remember that in your case and in that of others this often occurred in the process of learning to read? Theaetetus You mean that I mistook the letters and misspelt the syllables? Socrates Yes. Theaetetus To be sure; I perfectly remember, and I am very far from supposing that they who are in this condition have knowledge. Socrates When a person at the time of learning writes the name of Theaetetus, and thinks that he ought to write and does write th and e; but, again, meaning to write the name of Theododorus, thinks that he ought to write and does write t and e⁠—can we suppose that he knows the first syllables of your two names? Theaetetus We have already admitted that such a one has not yet attained knowledge. Socrates And in like manner be may enumerate without knowing them the second and third and fourth syllables of your name? Theaetetus He may. Socrates And in that