Theaetetus (dialogue)
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The Theætetus (Θεαιτητος) is a dialogue by Plato. In this dialogue Socrates, Theodorus of Cyrene and Theaetetus try to define what knowledge is. This conversation occurs just prior to the Trial of Socrates in 399 BC. The action of the dialogue occurs in 369 BC, when the Megarian philosophers Euclides and Terpsion have the account of the conversation read upon hearing that Theaetetus was mortally wounded in battle. Most scholars believe it to be written in memory of Theaetetus' death, and thus date its composition to around 369 BC.
The Theaetetus is the beginning of a trilogy of dialogues, the others being the Sophist and the Statesman. The conversation among Socrates, Theaetetus, and Theodorus occurs immediately before the action of the Euthyphro. It is also often considered to follow the Parmenides.
Although the dialogue never succeeds in giving a clearcut answer to the question "What is knowledge?", it demonstrates some failed and some more fruitful approaches to the question. The fact that Socrates' interlocutors are mathematicians, and that the conversation was recorded by a Megarian, has been suggested as one cause of the dialogue's failure to settle upon an answer. It is considered one of Plato's best (and hardest) works, and approaches not very different from those taken in the dialogue are still discussed in modern epistemology.
The dialogue is split into roughly three sections: 1) Knowledge is perception; 2) Knowledge is true belief, and 3) Knowledge is justified true belief. It is preceded by a brief exchange between Euclides and Terpsion. The first section is the longest, as Plato engages in a lengthy and complex critique of the views of Protagoras and Heraclitus, viewing the definition of knowledge as perception as being a kind of relativism, and related to the views held by those two thinkers. The second section is mostly concerned with how false belief is possible, which is another issue that is never satisfactorily explained within this text. The definition of knowledge as true belief is finally swiftly dismissed by noting that people may form a true belief by mere luck. The third section is the most studied part of the text, as it presents a popular and enduring definition of knowledge. This definition is finally dismissed via a complex argument about the elemental components of objects. Simply put, this argument holds that to justify a true belief about an object (and thus possess knowledge about it), the object must be broken down into its parts and those analysed. Eventually this process leads to the simplest components of objects. As these components are the simplest parts possible, they cannot be broken down any further, and therefore no true belief about them can be justified. Therefore, they are unknowable as per the third definition. This means that the components of any object cannot be known, which means that any object, which is the sum of these parts, cannot be known. By this definition therefore, no knowledge is possible.
Many objections to the arguments against the third definition have been raised. Two of the most popular approaches are to dispute what is required to justify a belief, and to dispute that a complex object is merely the sum of its elements.
The dialogue is also notable for a very famous passage in which Socrates likens himself to a midwife. Socrates claims that he doesn't know anything, and thus cannot teach anybody anything. This is compared to midwives who, in his time, were typically past child bearing age and thus sterile. However, like midwives, he can help people 'give birth' to nascent ideas they might have.
In this dialogue, Socrates refers to Epicharmus of Kos as "the prince of Comedy" and Homer as "the prince of Tragedy", and both as "great masters of either kind of poetry".1 This is significant because it is one of the very few extant references in greater antiquity (Fourth century BC) to Epicharmus and his work. Another reference is in Plato's Gorgias dialogue.