Dancy - Theaetetus Baby

Theaetetus' First Baby: Theaetetus 151e-160e
Author(s): R. M. DANCY
Source: Philosophical Topics , FALL 1987, Vol. 15, No. 2, Ancient Greek Philosophy (FALL
1987), pp. 61-108
Published by: University of Arkansas Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43154006
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PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS
Volume XV, No. 2, Fall 1987
Theaetetus' First Baby:

Theaetetus 151e-160e*
R. M. DANCY
Florida State University
I. Introduction
Theaetetus has a miscarriage at 146cd: asked 'what is knowledge?', he

says: geometry, astronomy, cobbling, and so on, are all knowledges.1
Socrates elaborately explains that this will not do (146d-147c).2 Theaetetus
even more elaborately explains that he sees the point (147c-148e).3 It is
after this that Socrates introduces the famous description of himself as a
midwife,4 and encourages Theaetetus to try again (148e-151d). Theaetetus
then produces the claim that knowledge is perception (15 le). Most of the
dialogue is devoted to this claim, what Socrates makes of it, and its
refutation.
The claim that knowledge is perception, with the embellishments

Socrates introduces, is what I am referring to as Theaetetus' first baby (cf.
160e2-3).
It is a complex child. Let the unadorned assertion be '(T )' for short.
Socrates immediately tells Theaetetus that this is what Protagoras said,
and introduces (151e-152a), as what Protagoras said, a kind of subjectivism
that I shall call 'Protagoras' doctrine' or '(P)'. It is not at all obvious that
(P) is what (T) is naturally taken to mean. Worse, a page later Socrates
drags in another view, a doctrine of universal flux, that he ascribes to
everyone but Parmenides (152e2) but which Theodorus (179d) and the rest
of us associate with Heraclitus. Let us call it 'Heracliteanism' or '(H)'.
Socrates now tells us that this is the real truth underlying (P) (152c 10),
and Theaetetus is saddled with (H).
What, in fact, are the relationships among these three views? At the end
of it all, Socrates says that they have coincided, 'fallen together into the
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same thing' (eis tocùtòv oiJjxTréTrTcoKev, 16d6). But even then it is not
easy to see how, and Socrates himself goes on to provide separate refu-
tations for each of the three.
I believe the relationships are quite complex. In particular, I do not

think that any of them, in any straightforward sense, entails any of the
others.5 Rather, in sum: the introduction of (P) changes the natural sense
of (T). (P) is independently argued for, on the basis of a confusion Socrates
perpetrates in the name of Protagoras. (H) is intended to support (P), not
by entailing it or being entailed by it, but by explaining how the world
can be so arranged that (P) is true. But, in fact, (H) stands in contradiction
to (P).
Theaetetus' first baby, if it had survived, would have been a schizo-
phrenic whose separate personalities had additional disorders. Some6 have
thought that Plato was here presenting his own theory of the sensible world
and of our perception of it, incorrect only in that it lacks the forms. Then
the baby is to some extent Plato's, and it is doubly important that it is
such a mess.
I follow the dialogue: this paper takes the form of selective commentary.
2. Theaetetus ' Definition
Let us confine (T) to the single formulation 'knowledge is perception';

it is actually Socrates who first gives this formula (in 151e6), and he
launches immediately into the exposition of Protagoreanism (see 15 ld-
152a). I shall go more slowly.
2. 1 Perceiving and being aware
Encouraged by Socrates, Theaetetus had said (151el-3);
e Well, it seems to me that he who knows something perceives that which

he knows, and, as it now appears to me, knowledge is nothing other
than perception.
e ôoKtí ow |xoi ò emoTctjievos ti aia0ctv€a0ai toôto

'ò èmoraTai, Kai fos ye vwi <1>aív€Tai, oòk &''o tl eoriv
€mOTTļ|XTl 'T] aïo-0T1CTis.
Why might Theaetetus have said this? When he listed the things he took
to be knowledges, he included geometry and cobbling. Does he really
think these are just matters of sense-perception?7
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But perception here is not simply sense-perception.8 Neither the Greek9
nor the English verbs are confined to that: one can perceive that the square
root of 17 is irrational, for example, by considering that 17 would have
to divide both the numerator and denominator of any fraction used to write
it.
The first time the verb 'perceive' is used in the Theaetetus it is Theodorus
who utters it; he prefaces a laudatory account of Theaetetus' intelligence
by saying (144a2-3):
I've never perceived anyone as wonderfully talented
oü&éva neo iļa00|XTļv otjtío 0av|xaoroì>s ei) īrecļruKOTa.
Plainly the emphasis here is not on sense-perception.
Socrates is the next to use it: in discussing midwives, he says to Theae-

tetus (149d5-6):
Have you perceived also that they are very skilled matchmakers . . .?
<ip' ovv Iti Kai tóÔ€ aťnwv V|a0Tļaai, 'óti Kai TTpoixvrjoTpiaí
euri &€ivÓTaTai . . .
to which Theaetetus responds, "No, I certainly didn't know that"(où

ttóvu toûto oiôa, d9). This, too, has nothing directly to do with eyesight,
hearing, etc. But this passage illustrates the intuitive appeal of (T): Theae-
tetus has simply replaced the occurrence of 'perceive' by 'know'.
Occurrences of the Greek verb aía0áv€CT0ai may frequently be para-
phrased using 'aware': Theodorus might have said that he was aware of
no one as wonderfully talented as Theaetetus, and Socrates might have
asked if Theaetetus was aware that midwives were good matchmakers. So
when the word next occurs, in Theaetetus' formulation of his answer, we
might have translated:
it seems to me that he who knows something is aware of that which he

knows, and, as it now appears to me, knowledge is nothing other than
awareness.
Then (T) might have been read as:
A knows that S is P = df A is aware that S is P.
This is, I think, the sense of (T). And it is perfectly natu

But I shall stick to 'perceive' in the sequel, for even if pe
confined to the senses, the senses provide its central cases,
in the Theaetetus.
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2.2 Knowing , perceiving , and íAď truth
In Plato's discussions of knowledge, the verb 'know' is more often

followed by a simple term than it is by a 'that'-clause. 10 The verb 'perceive'
is subject to the same pair of constructions.11 Plato's concentration on the
former is sometimes important,12 but not, I think, here: the major points
are most easily worked out with the 4 that' -clause construction.13
Again, in discussions of knowledge, Plato makes use of the fact that
'know' is what I shall call a 'veridical' verb: there is something wrong
with saying, "Socrates knows that the cat is on the mat, but it's not"; in
saying that Socrates knows something I commit myself to the truth of what
I say he knows. In English, 'perceive', 14 'see', and many other verbs are
'veridical' in the same sense.15 So also, with slight differences, are their
Greek translations.16
Elsewhere in Plato {Górgias 454d, and cf. Republic v 477e), it is this
that distinguishes knowledge from belief: 'know' is veridical and 'believe'
is not. In the Theaetetus , it comes in only after Socrates has introduced
Protagoras' position.17 At 152c5-6 he says:
So perception is always of what is, and falsehood-free,18 as being

knowledge
a'ia0Tļais &pa toû övtos cteí ecrriv Kai aiļ/€'>0€s a>s emariļļATi
owa.
The last phrase, "as being knowledge", is r

reading (see below)20, Socrates is showing that
the first hurdle a purported definiens for 'know
and what he is saying is that 'perceive' is a s
From our present vantage-point, that does n
is already veridical. But by the time Socrates
things will be quite different.
3. Protagoras' Position
When Socrates equates (T) with what Protag

Protagoras as saying (152a2-4):21
that man is the measure of all things: of thi

of things that are not, that they are not
<|)Tļai 7<ip irov irávTcov xPÎM^tíov |¿€Tp

|A€V 'ÓVTÍOV Ü)S 'eon, Tü)V 8è 'JiJ' 'ÓVTO)V ü
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He understands 'man' in this to refer to each individual man (so he says
at 152a8),22 and so paraphrases Protagoras as saying (152a6-8):
In each case, as things seem to me, so they are to me, and as they seem
to you, so again they are to you
OÙKOUV ovtci) ircas Xeêt, cas ota ļiev 'éKacrra €|xot <ļ>atv€Tat
ToiavTa |xèv 'eoTtv qxot, ota ôè om, Totaôra ôè aí) crot.
Let us shorten this to:
(P*) Things are to each person as they seem to him.
There is going to be a little more to (P) than this.
3.1 The exclusion of objectivity
By way of expanding on (P*) Socrates says (152b2-3):

Isn't it so that sometimes, when the same wind is blowing, one of us
feels chilly, but not the other? Or one slightly, the other very much so?
dp' OÒK €VtOT€ TTVCOVTOS CO>€|XOV TOW OÙTOÛ Ò JJlèv fļ|XO)V pt7<p ó 8'
o'3; Kat ò jJL€v^pé|xa, ó 8è o^óôpa;
When it comes to feeling chilly, or to other examples Socrates will intro-
duce such as a light's seeming bright to one (cf. 154b) or wine's tasting
sweet to one (159c), there is a phenomenon reminiscent of the veridicality
of 'know': there is something peculiar about saying of someone: 'he thinks
he feels chilly, but he doesn't, or 'he thinks the wine tastes sweet to him,
but it doesn't'. Let us call this 'incorrigibility'.23
Incorrigibility is not veridicality. Incorrigibility attaches to the mental
act or attitude by virtue of the object toward which it is directed. What is
odd or impossible is that you should think you feel chilly when you don't
really feel chilly. It is a peculiarity of the feeling of chilliness that you
can't, or can't without heavy qualification, think it is there without its
being there. But veridicality is indifferent to the object of the act or attitude:
knowing that S, where S is false, is difficult to make sense of no matter
what replaces 'S'.
Socrates has us out in the wind, one of us feeling chilly and the other
not; he now asks (152b5-7):
At such times, then, shall we say that the wind itself, on its own, is
cold, or not cold? Or shall we be persuaded by Protagoras that it is cold
to the one who feels chilly, but not to the one who isn't?
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IIÓTepov ovv tót€ atiro €<()' 'ecorroO to irveūļjLa iļruxpov 'q où i|ruxpòv
<ļ)f|aoļxev; 'tj TreiCTÓ(X€0a t<£ npomryopij oti T<ļi> |xev pi/y&v ti
vjn^xpov, t<£ ôè |XTj o'3;
Theaetetus defers to Protagoras,24 and Socrates asks (b9):

And doesn't it seem thus to each?
OÜKouv Kai cļ>aLV€Tai ovtío €KaTep(ļ);

I.e., doesn't it seem cold to the one who feels chilly, and to whom, we
have just agreed, it is cold? Theaetetus assents.
We are being had here. The way Socrates talks, going from 4 1 feel chilly'
to 'it seems cold' to 'it is cold to me' is just saying one thing instead of
another. Let us grant him this. But then he is offering Theaetetus a false
dichotomy.
We may describe the initial situation thus:
(1) The wind seems cold to Socrates and does not seem cold to
Theaetetus.
Socrates assumes, and this is what we are conceding, that (1) entails:
(2) The wind is cold to Socrates and is not cold to Theaetetus.
But he asks Theaetetus to accept:
(3) Either (A) the wind in itself is cold (or not), or (B), it is cold to
Socrates and not to Theaetetus, but not both.
And that, with (2), gives us
(4) The wind in itself is neither cold nor not cold.25
The false dichotomy is at (3): there is no inconsistency at all in saying
that the wind is, really, quite warm, although it seems cold to Socrates.
Perhaps we should get him to a doctor.
What is presupposed by (3) is that if the wind is really not cold, it
cannot be cold to anyone, where that just means it cannot appear cold to
anyone. After Socrates has introduced Heracliteanism, we shall find him
making this claim explicitly and completely generally (in 154b: see p. 78
below): if something is really <(>, it can never appear to anyone as anything
but ct>.26 But then it will be embedded in a complex metaphysical scheme.
What is pertinent now is that Socrates realizes he needs this claim.
Once we have that premise, the argument relies on incorrigibility. The
wind seems cold to Socrates; if that conflicts with its in fact being warm,
we shall have to deny that it is warm; otherwise we'd have to deny that
it seems cold to Socrates, despite what he thinks. But incorrigibility tells
us that we cannot do that.
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The argument completes the sense of (P): the sting in Protagoras' claim
is not in (P*), 'things are to each person as they seem to him' (p. 65
above); (P*) is what we have conceded to Socrates. The sting is rather in
the presupposition that there is no further question: and how are things
really? Protagoras' position, then, is:
(P) Things are to each person as they seem to him, and nothing is
anything on its own, apart from its seeming something to somebody.
What we have so far is an argument for (P), and that argument is quite
independent of (T): there has been no attempt so far to derive (T) from
(P), or even to make (P) relevant to (T).
3.2 The paradox of false belief
The argument for (P) works by suppressing the possibility that the one
to whom the wind seems cold might be wrong. That is a lot to suppress.
Later on, the Protagoras with whom Socrates presents us tries to fill this
gap directly, without appeal to Heracliteanism. A look at this will take us
momentarily outside our chosen text, but it is worth it.
Socrates later has Protagoras tossing out the following argument
(167a6-8):
It's not that something might ever make one who believes falsehood
later on believe truths, for it is not possible to believe things that are
not
ènei o'3 tí 7e <p€vôf| 8o£á£ovTá tís Tiva vorepov a'Tļ0rj eiroiTļae

ôoijáÇeiv o'3t€ ^àp Tà |xt) 'óvTa ôwaTÒv ôoÇáaai.
The argument for this famous paradox is: since one cannot speak or think
of that which is not, one cannot speak or think falsehoods, for a falsehood
speaks of a state of affairs that is not.
This is only what we should expect from a Platonic Protagoras: in the
Euthydemus as well, Plato lays the idea that false belief (286cd), false
statement (286c), and saying that which is not (284c), are impossible at
the doorstep of 'Protagoras and his associates' (oí ot|xcļ)L npomryópav,
286c2).27 It is not merely incidental in the Theaetetus, either: Socrates
labors over the problem in examining Theaetetus' next baby as well, the
definition of knowledge as true belief (187c-220d). I think the reason is
this: if there is no possibility of false belief, this purportedly new definition
collapses into (simply) belief, and that is, ultimately, what the first
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definition amounts to. The rejection of the possibility of false belief is the
foundation of Protagoras' position as Socrates sees that position. With that
rejection, the dichotomy between (A) and (B) in (3) above is no longer
false: the alternative of making Socrates wrong about the wind is scratched,
since nobody can ever be wrong about anything.
3.3 Perception Protagorized
We still have nothing to connect (P) and (T). Socrates, back in our
chosen text, makes the connection immediately (152bll-c6):
SOC.: 'Seems', then, is perceiving?

THT.: It is.
c SOC.: So seeming28 and perception are the same in cases of hot

things and all things like that. For29 as each perceives things, so they
turn out to be for each person.
THT.: So it looks.
5 SOC.: So perception is always of what is, and falsehood-free, as

being knowledge.
Sii. Tò 8é 7€ <1>aiv€Tai aiaöaveaöai èoriv;
0EAI. "Eoriv -yap.
c 2fí. (|>avTaaría &pa Kai alaOâis tocùtòv 'év t€ 0ep|xois Kai
irdkxi toì<5 ToiovTois ota ^àp aia0av€Tai 'éKaoros, ToiaOra
6KaoT<|) Kai KivÔvvevei eivai.
©EAI. "Eoik€V.
5 Sii. Aīa0Tļais 'ápa tov 'óvtos aeí èoriv Kai aiļ/evSēs ¿>s
», i
emarríiAiri ow
44 'Seems' is pe
be rewritten 'S
But 'perceives'
for 'knows'. Ori
Socrates percei
Now we have to understand that to amount to:
The wind seems to Socrates to be cold, but it isn't.
There was nothing wrong with that before Protagoras got to us, but the
argument for (P) we have just considered has rendered it unacceptable.
It did that by insisting that there could be no question of the wind's
being or not being, in fact, cold. Now no one can claim, flatly, that the
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wind is cold; all anyone can do is say that the wind is, to him , cold. As
Socrates later puts it (160c7-d4):
SOC.: So my perception is true for me - for it is always of a being

that is mine30 - and I, in accordance with Protagoras, am arbiter of the
things that are for me, that they are, and of the things that are not, that
they are not.
10 THT.: So it looks.
d SOC.: Then, how, when I am falsehood-free and do not blunder
in my thought about the things that are or come into being, could I
not be a knower of the things of which I am a perceiver?
THT.: There's no way at all.
Sil. 'AXtjOtjs &pa €|xol Tļ €|xri ataÔTiais - tt|s ^àp e|xf|s
ofcrtas aei èoriv - Kai kyù> Kpirrļs Konrà tòv IIpíCToryopav
TÜ>V T€ 'ÓVTÍOV €|XOÌ ü)S 'éOTL, Kal Tû)V 1XT1 'ÓVTÍOV ü)<5 oùk 'éoriv.
10 ©EAI. "EOIKCV.
d Sil. Tifo; 'àv oíiv ai|i€v8T)<; 'a>v Kai |xt] urauov Tp ôiavoúj ir
Tà'óvTa 7i7vójxeva oĎKeiriaTTiixíov 'àv etiļv covrrep aia0TļT
0EAI. Oùôapxî)s 'óttíos o'3.
And so it is that perception Protagorized can count as knowledge: it is
of falsehood.31
We have not thereby constructed a positive proof that percep
Protagorized is knowledge. We have shown that the one thing you
think would block it from being knowledge, namely, that it can se
one that the wind is cold when the wind isn't cold, does not block it
being knowledge, for it can't happen that the wind seems cold whe
really isn't.
But in showing that perception Protagorized is falsehood-free, and thus
supporting the claim of perception Protagorized to be knowledge, we have
altered the natural sense of (T). For that involved just perception, not
perception Protagorized. So we cannot claim that (P) has been shown to
entail (T).
3.4 Sense-perception as a paradigm case
The notion of perception, we have said, is not confined to sense-

perception. But now we are talking about the chills we feel, and we shall
soon be talking about the brightness we see, and the sweetness we taste.
This is very sensual stuff. Is the notion of perception now narrrowed to
such stuff?
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We do not have to say that it is,32 and it would be better not to.
It would be better not to because subsequent treatment of (P) requires
it to cover cases in which what seems, is perceived, to be so is not sense-
perceived to be so. We shall, for example, have to think of dreaming (in
157e-158a, 158e-160d) and remembering (166bl-4)33 as cases of
perceiving. And, more importantly, the cases that are Protagoras' prime
targets are not actually matters of sense-perception at all.
Later he is made to justify his teaching people (167d ff.): this, he says,
is not a matter of replacing false beliefs, perceptions, by true ones, since,
on his principles, that is not possible (167ab; also 166e-167a), but of
replacing beliefs (perceptions) detrimental to the believer by beneficial
ones. But he is not, in his teaching, concerned with just any detrimental
or beneficial beliefs. Socrates has adduced the case of a sick man to whom
the wine tasted bitter. Protagoras is prepared to apply his general principle
to this case: this is a sick perception, but not a false one (166e-167a). But
replacing it with a healthy one is not his business: he is not a doctor, but
a sophist (167a5-6). The domain of belief in which he operates is that of
the politicians: beliefs as to what is just and unjust (167b-d; cf. 157d7-8).
Here too the general principle applies: what seems just or praiseworthy to
people34 is so for them, 'as long as they themselves think so' (167c4-5).
Socrates is quite explicit about these questions to which Protagoras
particularly addresses himself not being matters of sense-perception. He
makes it a point against (P) that it is least persuasive in such matters (in
171d9-172b7). But in this same passage, he makes it plain why he
elaborated Protagoras' position in terms of sense-perception: it is there that
that position 'is especially firm' (Tavrp hv |xáXiora 'íoraor0ai 171d9).
But Protagoras wants to extend it to every area, and that, Socrates thinks,
is less plausible.
The generality of the theory is due at least in part to the 'paradox of
false belief that we just saw looming behind it: that paradox is not confined
by anything to beliefs that register only sensory input. So it gives to (P)
a perfectly general force: Socrates' Protagoreans are, he says, people who
"lay it down that whatever things are thought are true for him who thinks
them" (158e5-6: Tà aei ôoKouvTa òpi£Ó1xevoi T<p ôokouvti eivai
aÂ/T10f|).35
This ever-popular position is what I want to call 'subjectivism'.36 Its
appeal is not only, or even primarily, in the realm of the senses: moral
and religious beliefs have more often been prey to it. Protagoras says that
it is not possible to believe things that are not
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nor any but things one is undergoing,37 and these are always true
167a7-bl:
o'3t€ 'áXXa Trap' & ftv ira <txq, tclvtol 8è àei aXirļ0Tļ.
And something's currently striking one as right, or sad, or divine, is as
much a part of what one is 'undergoing' as is a chill or the bitter taste in
one's mouth.
If there can be no such thing as a false belief, two people who seem to
disagree, about, say, the wind or slavery, can only38 be talking about
different things (since neither is wrong). And there is something for each
to be talking about, about which the other cannot challenge him: the
experience of the one (in finding the wind cold, or slavery repugnant) is
not that of the other. As Protagoras tells us in 166c3-7, he can only be
refuted by being shown
that perceptions do not come-into-being unique for each of us, or that,

although they do come-into-being unique (for each of us), still, what
appears will not come-into-being (or be, if one has to call it 'being')
for that one only to whom it does appear
ios otyl īSiai aio-0TļCT€ts €k<xot<1> Iļļjuov ^typovTou, 'tj a>s 'iôúdv
"yi7v0|x€vü)v oůSev ti 'àv |xàXXov tò <f>aivó|xevov |xóv(j) eKeiv<|)
7Í7V01T0, *rļ el eivai 8eí òvo|xá£eiv, eXi' cgirep <1>aíveTai.
This is the conflation that turns incorrigibility into veridicality: the unique-
ness of my experience (that it is me that slavery strikes as repugnant)
renders it resistant to - here, completely immune from - challenge by oth-
ers, and that immunity is taken to carry across to its contents.
And, of course, a paradigm for this picture is provided by the experiences
of sense-perception. It is here, where I am unimpeachably right when I
say I feel cold, as are you when you say you feel warm, that it seems
most natural to give us each something to be right about: me a cold feeling,
you a warm one. In 152b, Socrates is looking to this paradigm. He does
not tell us how to extend it to cover matters of morality or mathematics,
and his development of the view will have for its center of interest the
physical world. There if anywhere sense-perception is paramount in
experience and the determination of belief, so Socrates will give us a
theory of sense-perception.
But even for the 'physical world' it is not clear how to generalize the
paradigm invoked in support of (P) to cover all that (P) needs to cover.
There remains the wind: in the example of 152b, it blows on both of us,
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and I feel cold but you don't. We put this into Protagorese by saying: it
is cold to me and not to you; in its own right it is neither. But what if you
not only don't feel cold, but you don't feel the wind? We can hardly say
that it blows for me but not for you, but in its own right does neither, for
if it neither blows nor doesn't in its own right there is no wind at all. But
if I feel it and you don't, our argument applies: if the wind is actually
there, you can't feel it not to be there. And the paradox of false belief is
ready to take up any slack: if I believe the wind is there and you don't,
and wind is in fact there, you're wrong; but that, says the paradox, can't
be.
So we have not carried things quite far enough.39 One of the most
important functions performed by the Heracliteanism now introduced is
that of stopping the wind.
4. Heracliteanism
'Heracliteanism' is the claim, made in 152el, that:
(H) Nothing ever is, but always comes-to-be ('éori yJkv yàp oòScttot'
oùSév, aei 8è î^veTai).
What does this have to do with (P) and (T)?
4. 1 The Juncture Claim ; the contradiction
According to Socrates, when Protagoras uttered (P), "he said it as a

riddle for us, the vulgar mob, but for his disciples, in secret, he spoke the
truth" (152c9-10: touto 4]jxív |xèv iļviâTo t<£ tto''<£> crvp<|>€T<p, tois
8è ļxa0TļTais èv airoppTjTťj) tt)v à'fj0€iav 'éXe7€v), namely (d2-6):
an account that isn't trifling, to the effect that nothing is one (thing)
just in its own right: you can't correctly call it something or of some
sort ; if you call it big, it will also show up little; if (you call it)
5 heavy, (it will also show up) light; and so for everything, in that
nothing is one (thing), either something or of a sort ; ....
Sil. E7Ü) èpa) Kai |x<xX' oí) <1>aö'ov '070v, tos &p 'èv |xèv
a ino Ka0' atnò où&év eaTiv, 0Ü8' 'áv ti irpoCTeiirois
opöws où8' Óttoiovow Ti, òtXX' èàv to<5 jjiéâ irpoo'cryopevps,
5 Kai afxiKpòv <1>aveiTai, Kai 'eàv ßapv, kouc(>ov, crujxiravTa tc
OVTÍÚS, 0)S 1XT1ÔeVÒS 'ÓVTOS éuòs |A1Ì1T€ Tivòs |XT1T€ OTTOIOVOW*
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The connection between (P) and (H) is to be made through what I shall
call the 'Juncture Claim',40 first encountered here in 152d2-3 and d6:
(JC) Nothing is one (thing).
Here 'one (thing)' is made a predicate variable by Socrates' commentary:
in the case of anything whatever, we cannot say that it is <ļ>, no matter
what we take for <ļ>. In particular, the reiterated refusal to allow us to
characterize anything as something or as of some sort (d3-4, d6)41 invokes
a rudimentary categorial scheme,42 and tells us that in the case of any
given thing we can neither say of it what it is nor of what sort it is, that
is, what qualities it has.43 That is, to return to the wind, we can neither
say that it is cold nor even that it is a wind.
This has a clear sense against the background of Protagoreanism we
have been considering: no characterization of anything holds independently
of its seeming to someone to hold. Not only is the wind not, objectively,
cold or warm, it is not, objectively, a wind; it is not there, independently,
'in its own right'.
So construed, the weight of (JC) is on the words 'just in its own right'.
These words point to (P).44 They exclude a perceiver: nothing is cļ) without
one.
But Socrates immediately reconstrues the Claim (152d5-el, over

with the preceding quotation):
d 5 . . . and so for everything, in that nothing is one (thing),

something or of a sort; it is from motion, change, and mix
relative to each other,45 that all things come-into-being, all o
we say is, but we don't call it that correctly, for nothing e
anything, but always comes-into-being.
d 5 ... cruļAiravTa Te oVjtcds cos jjlt1Ô€pòs
'ÓVTOS €UÒÇ |XlfļT€ TlUÒç |XTļT€ ÓlTOlOVOUV €K 8è <ļ>Opā<5 T€ K
Kivfjaetos Kat Kpáaecas irpòç &X'Ti'a 7L7V€tqu irávTa 'à ôr
<1>a|X€v eivai, o'>k òp0á>s irpoaaôpeíiovTeç- 'coti (xev
e -yàp ouôéiroT' otôév, aei 8è 7í>yveTai.
This continuation places (JC) against a different background that affe

its sense. It only gets its sense from what it denies. Above, we ha
denying objectivity; now we have it denying stability. There we were
allowed to say anything that implied the existence of things independe
of us; here, we are not allowed to say anything that implies the existe
of things for long enough to speak of. On the new construal, the wo
'just in its own right' would not point to the intended contrast, and Socra
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here simply drops them. He tries to make of both construais taboos which
take the word 'is' as the center of pollution, but the former would have
us purify ourselves and our sentences by adding 'to me' or replacing 'is'
with 'seems to me', while the latter would have us use 'becomes' instead.
The difference in focus makes for a certain tension in the sequel, as we
shall see: it is sometimes difficult to be sure whether Socrates' moves are
made against objectivity or against stability.

But there is more than just tension here. For the construais of (JC) under
(P) and under (H) are not merely different ; they are contradictory.46 (P)
tells us that we can't assert or deny 'S is P' because there are no objective
truths or falsehoods. (H) tells us that we can't say 'S is P' because for
that to be true S would have to be stably P, and it is not . We can't say
'S is P' because it is false that S is P.
Things cannot be made right by distinguishing between being and be-
coming and restricting (P) to the former. The argument we have considered
for (P), especially inasmuch as it depends on the rejection of the possibility
of false belief, is perfectly general. (P) tells us that Socrates can't be wrong
in saying that the wind is cold (to him), since there isn't anything for him
to be wrong about: the wind isn't, in reality, either cold or not cold. (H)
would now have us say that, in reality, the wind grows warmer by the
minute. That gives Socrates something to be wrong about. And it will not
help a bit to add, breathlessly, before the opposition has a chance to speak:
and , of course, it gets colder at the same time. These are both written off
by (P), because they are claims about what goes on out there.
This contradiction cannot be made to go away and stay away. There are
vestiges of it, I think, operative in Socrates' refutations of (P) and (H).
But, especially if that is so, it is important to see now that it is a contra-
diction between (P) and (H), and not, so far, one internal to either. It is
made to center on a single claim, (JC), allegedly common to both positions,
but, from this point of view, it is really only the words of (JC) that the
two positions share.
In particular, the contradiction here is not a matter of (P)'s being put
out as an objective truth to the effect that there are no objective truths, or
of (H)'s being put out as a permanent truth to the effect that there are no
permanent truths. Socrates' refutations of (P) and (H) appeal to difficulties
somewhat like these, and the contradiction we are here finding between
(P) and (H) may be the root of the train of thought that leads him toward
those refutations. But it is not here offered in refutation of either, nor does
Socrates use it that way later.
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Still, there it is. It makes for a shaky relationship between (P) and (H).
The relation, as Socrates presents it, is that (P) carries with it an extreme
consequence, (JC), whose truth is made plain by (H). In the first instance,
there is no question of entailments between (P) and (H): rather, they are
supposed to have a common entailment in (JC). It is in this that they 'have
fallen together' (cf. 152d with 160d). In fact, (JC), paraphrased to show
the sense it is given by (P) ('nothing is anything just by itself, but only is
for someone') virtually is (P); and paraphrased to show its sense under (H)
('nothing is anything just by itself, but only becomes'), it virtually amounts
to (H).
If it is true that the contradiction is not finally eliminable, what attitude
should we adopt toward it? I suggest tolerance. Socrates continues to
develop the position, and the development does not turn in any crucial
way on the contradiction. In fact, it has the effect of minimizing it. Socrates
will describe a universe consisting only of changes; this conforms to (H).
But these changes are perceptual transactions: transactions in which some-
thing seems so to someone. As we go on, there is progressively less, and
finally, perhaps, nothing, left outside the transactions. So it sounds more
and more like a universe in which everything is a matter of its seeming
so within such a transaction. The contradiction remains, since we must
suppose that such transactions really do take place, whatever you and I
think. I shall return to this at the end. But for the time being, mostly, I
want to ignore it.
It is easy enough to see how it can be ignored: all we need to do is limit
the generality of (P). We suppose that everything is subjective except the
changes that (H) alleges to be out there. (P) is then a less interesting
position, and we must try to forget the unlimited generality of the argument
that supports it. But we can at least go on reading the dialogue.
The possibility of avoiding the contradiction by limiting the scope of
(P) shows that the above-mentioned tension in the combined position is
not simply due to the contradiction: the tension consisted in the fact that
the composite position might be applied against either objectivity or sta-
bility, and that fact is still with us even if the rejection of objectivity is
limited so that the fundamental changes remain unrejected.
In 153a-d Socrates gives a string of considerations in favor of Heracli-
teanism, all quite specious (e.g., that inactivity brings atrophy), adding
nothing to our understanding of (H). It is only when he turns to the
elaboration of sense-perception that anything substantive happens.
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4.2 The theory of sense-perception
Sense-perception provided a paradigm for (P), and now it will for (H).
The problem is to describe it in a way that will fit both. The general
technique is to dissolve everything that seems to be objective in sense-
perception into something that only comes-to-be for a perceiver. I shall
speak of 'perceptual transactions': situations in which a perceiver perceives
something (that is, where something seems to him to be so). And then the
object of the exercise is to show that nothing exists outside of or 'tran-
scends', as I shall say, the particular perceptual transaction in which it
figures. We may take this up in three stages: first, colors, as a paradigm
for other sense-qualities, are dissolved, then perceived objects such as the
wind, and last the perceivers themselves. These correspond to sections of
the text, except that the last occurs in a stretch of text in which the primary
object is dealing with an objection: a case in which there seem to be false
beliefs.
4.2.1 Colors (153d-154a).
Socrates begins by brandishing (H) at them (153d8-e2):
First, for the eyes: what you call bright color you must take not to
be anything distinct, not outside your eyes and not in your eyes,
e nor can you post it at any place; for then, no doubt, it would be
at that post, stable, and not come-into-being in becoming.
KOtTCt Tà
'0ļXļxaTa TrpcûTOV, 'ò ôrj KaXeís xP&ixa Xcukóv, |xf) eivai ocùrò
10 'eTcpóv ti ě£(o TÔv d(ùv 0ļXļJLaTO)v |xt)8' èv Tois 6ļxļxaai
e i JLT1Ô6 tiv' ai)T(ļ) x<*>pav airoTa^s* Yjôti 7àp 'àv 6ÏT1 Te òj'ttov
èv TáÇei Kai |xévov Kai oòk 'àv èv 7€véaei 717V01T0.
Rather, 4 'we should stick to our account of a moment ago, laying it down
that nothing is one (thing) just in its own right" (e4-5: €Tr<o|X€0a t<£>
&pTi 'Ó7(f), |XT|8èv aĎTÓ Ka0' oòtò 'èv 'òv ti0€vt€s). In our terms, this
is a matter of instantiating the Juncture Claim for "a bright color" as
subject and "someplace" as predicate, and insisting that the result is a
consequence of Heracliteanism. But the formulation of the Juncture Claim
contains the words that point to Protagoreanism ('just in its own right').
And that is where the subsequent embellishment takes us.47 Color, we
are told (153e5-154a2), whether bright, dark, or whatever, is to be
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conceived as coming-into-being when the eyes run into an appropriate
motion; the color is neither eyes nor motion, "but something that has
come-into-being in between, unique to each" (154a2: àXM jx€TaÇú ti
€K0aT(ļ) 'lôiov 7670 vós): unique, that is, to each observer on each
occasion, one for a dog, another for Socrates, another for Theaetetus today,
yet another for him tomorrow or at any other time, since conditions will
never be the same again (154a2-9).
The relationship Socrates sets up between (P) and (H) is clearly visible
in this passage: he assumes (H), and provides an account of perception in
its terms; according to this account, a color is not intersubjective, or even
available to the same subject more than once, but only comes-to-be as one
aspect of a perceptual transaction: that is, as one aspect of a situation in
which (say) the wine seems to Socrates to be red. Since the color does
not transcend that situation, we have shown that (P) with (JC) holds for
colors: that is, that something is <ļ> for someone just in case it seems <ļ> for
him, and is not <(> in its own right, where '<(>' represents a color-adjective.
This is not to say that the account of perception is a consequence of
(P), or of (H), or of anything that has gone before. So, although it is
supposed to connect (P) and (H), it does not do this by making one a
consequence of the other; the most that can be said is that (H), with the
account of perception added to it, can be so fleshed out as to yield a limited
version of (P).
How limited a version of (P) does it yield? At 154b2 Socrates mentions
'large', 'bright', and 'hot' as examples the theory is to cover: plainly what
he has said about colors is supposed to be generalizable to cover other
sense-qualities as well. And later he will say to Theaetetus (157d7-8):
So say again if it pleases you that nothing is, but always comes-to-be ,
good and beautiful and all the things we just went through?
Sil. Aéyt toívuv ttcxXlv eX croi apeoxei tò iati ti eivai à''à
7Í7vea0ai àei oryaOòv Kai KaXòv Kai návTa 'à &pTi 8iņ|X€v.
So he thinks the theory can cover goodness and beauty.48 In 156b3-6
Socrates lists, as 'perceptions' covered by the theory, seeings, hearings,
smellings, chills, burnings, pleasures, griefs, desires, fears, "and oth-
ers";49 perhaps goodness and beauty are to be thought of as the objects of
feelings of indignation or rapture.
But the theory is going to have to cover a good deal more. Consider
again the wind that was cold to Socrates but not to Theaetetus, or the wine
that a little below (159c-3) is going to taste sweet to Socrates when he is
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healthy but sour when he is ill. The coldness and sweetness, clearly enough,
come to be only within the perceptual situation: the theory covers them.
But so far, the same cannot be said for the wind or the wine, and the
Juncture Claim forbade not only our saying of what sort something is (pale,
chilly), but also our saying that it is something , i.e., our saying what it
is: so the theory must be made to cover them.
4.2.2 Perceptible objects : the wind and the wine (154a-157d).
Socrates very nearly slips the wind and the wine under the rug. But
something is left showing, and there are tell-tale bulges. I shall first outline
what I take to be Socrates' line and then go to the text.
I shall speak of things like the colors that come-to-be uniquely in each
perceptual situation as 4 perceptď 50 . Correlated with each perceptum is the
perception of it, equally unique: this I shall call a 'percept'. The theory
that Socrates presents conceives of perceived objects, such as the wind,
the wine, stones, and so on, as collections or wholes made up of per cepta,
and of perceivers as wholes composed of percepts. We have already seen
that percepts do not transcend the perceptual transactions in which they
occur: any variation in the condition of the perceiver means a difference
of perceptum , and so, of course, of percept. But if the perceived object
is merely a bundle of percepta , and the perceiver merely a bundle of
percepts, that means that the perceived object and the perceiver are just
as non-transcendent as the percepta and percepts.
Socrates does not present this all at once. At 154bl-8 he says this:
So if what we measure ourselves against or that which we touch

were large, bright, or hot, it would never, falling on something
else, have come-to-be otherwise, itself not changing at all; and if
again what is measuring or touching were each of these things, it
5 would not, when something else runs into it or undergoes
something, have come-to-be any different, it itself undergoing noth-
ing.51 Since as things are, my friend, we're somehow forced to
say, in our tolerance, amazing and ridiculous things, as Protagoras
and anyone who tries to state the same things as he would say.
b 2fí. Oükow ei |X€v y Trapa (X€TpovļX€0a ^ o'> èâirToixeOa
|xe7a 'iļ XevKÒv 'f| ôepfxòv tjv, oùk ìxv itot€ irpoaireopv
&''o 'àv €7C7Óv€i, aÙTÓ ye ļi/rļSev |X€Taßa''ov €i ôè av tò
Uapa|X€TpOVJJL€VOV €<1)airTÓjJL€V0V 'éKaOTOV TļV TOVTü)V,
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5 oÙK 'àv at) &''ou irpoaeXOovTos ¥| ti na0óvTos aùrò jjlt1Ô€v
ttoôòv &''o 'àv e^éveTO. enei vOv y e, axfuXe, OavjJiaaTá t€
Kai yeXoia €Ùxepâ)s ttoís àva7Ka£ó|xeôa Á.€7€iv, ¿)s <1>aí/ri
'àv Ilpayra-yópas Te Kai iras ò Tà aťrrá CKeívíj) emxeipwv
kéyeiv.
Socrates here states, in the language of the theory of perception, the

claim that underlay the false dichotomy he had put to Theaetetus in 152b5-
7 (see above, pp. 65-66): if the wind were really hot, it couldn't seem
cold to anyone. We already know that the Protagorean theory accepts this.
The question now is, what does that acceptance look like with
Protagoreanism reinforced with Heracliteanism?
Socrates says that we uninitiated folk52 are forced to say 'amazing and
ridiculous things'. The next few pages (154c- 157c) are devoted to
explaining what amazing and ridiculous things. We should be clear from
the outset as to what it is that allegedly leads to these absurdities. Socrates
says: if a perceived object really were hot, it would never, encountering
another perceiver but itself undergoing no change, be cold (154bl-3); and
if the perceiver really were feeling cold, he would never, encountering
something else but himself undergoing no change, feel hot (b3-6).53 We
uninitiated fall into absurdities by denying this. That is, we are disposed
to say that the following situation obtains:
(1) An object O is perceived as hot, and really is hot.

(2) O does not change, but
(3) O is also perceived as cold.
What is supposed to be wrong here? The tension between the interpretations

provided for (JC) by (P) and by (H) appears at this point: under (H) it is
stability that must go, but under (P) it is objectivity. (P) and its elaboration
would make us suspicious of (1), and require restoration of the elided
reference to the two perceivers in (1) and (3), whereas we would expect
(H) to tell us that something is wrong with (2). And that is what Socrates'
elaboration of (H) will tell us: it cannot be that O is constant from (1) to
(3).
Anticipating a development to come in the theory of perception, let us
refer to perceived things as 'agents' , and to perceivers as 'patients' . Imagine
two situations, s, and s2; in s,, something seems bright to someone, and
in s2, something seems dark to someone. First (bl-3) let the agent (the
thing perceived, e.g. a certain stone) remain the same, unchanged while
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the patients (perceivers) are different. Then what Socrates rules out is this:
(la) In s,, the agent is brightly colored.

(2a) The agent does not change between s, and s2.
(3a) In s2, the agent is darkly colored.
Second, vary the agents (the perceived things: two different stones, say),
but keep the patient, and suppose he does not change. Then what is ruled
out is:
(lp) In Sj, the patient is seeing a bright color.

(2p) The patient does not change from s, to s2.
(3p) In s2, the patient is seeing a dark color.
In each of these trios of sentences, one term of the relation is elided:

the patient in the a's and the agent in the p's. So we might try to remove
the contradiction simply by rewriting, say, the first trio as:
(lap) In s,, the agent is bright to patient,.

(2ap) The agent does not change from s, to s2, but the patient does.
(3ap) In s2, the agent is dark to patient2.
But this is obviously not strong enough for Socrates' Heracliteanizing

Protagoras: although it may score a point for subjectivism, it does nothing
for universal flux.
Socrates leads us toward flux by way of certain 4 puzzles of size and

number'; his treatment of them is difficult to follow.54 Plato was himself
aware that the going was not easy. At 155d, Socrates asks Theaetetus if
he sees how the position they are working up would handle these puzzles,55
and Theaetetus does not see. After more elaboration he asks again if
Theaetetus sees what it does for the puzzles; Theaetetus still does not see
(156c3-5). He finally bullies a bewildered Theaetetus into accepting the
theory of perception (157cd) without returning to his puzzles to tell us
how to handle them.
The first puzzle involves dice: six of them, taken with twelve, are fewer;
taken with four, they are more (154c2-5). It shortly56 becomes clear that
the trio Socrates wants to show absurd here is this:
(Id) In Sj, the dice are fewer.

(2d) No dice are added or subtracted between s, and s2.
(3d) In s2, the dice are more.
In order to show it absurd, he brings in three 'apparitions' (<ļ>aa|xaTa,

155a2):
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Apparition I (155a3-5):
Nothing may ever come-to-be bigger or less, either in size or in number,
while it is equal to itself
lATjóéiroTe |ATj8èv 'àv |xeí£ov 'éXaTTOv 7€véa0ai jxt|T€ 'ó^kíj)

ļXTļT€ aptOjjup, 'éíos 'íaov eÏT' aÙTÒeavT<£.
Apparition II (a7-9):
What is neither being added to nor subtracted from is neither being
increased or diminished, but is always equal (to itself)
tļ) |XTjT€ TrpOOTTl0OLTO |XT|T€ Ot<ļ)aipOlTO TOUTO |XT1T€ aÙ£<XV€O*0aÎ 1T0T€

|XTļT€ <ļ)0iv€iv, aei 8è ïcrov eivai.
Apparition III (bl-2):

It is impossible for what earlier was not later to be without its having
come-to-be and coming-to-be
'Ò |xq irpÓT€pov Tļv, vorepov aXÂàTOÛTo eivai Ikvev rov yevé&Qai
Kal 7Í7vea0ai aôvvaTov;
These three, he says, fall into conflict over the dice (b4-6).
This is how they do it.57 It follows from Apparition II and (2d) that the
six dice have remained 'equal to themselves' from s, to s2; by Apparition
I, they have not come-to-be 'bigger in number', i.e., more, and so they
are in s2 what they were not in s, without having come-to-be that, contra
Apparition III.
For the second puzzle, consider Socrates at the beginning and end of
the year in the course of which Theaetetus outgrows him (cf. 155b6-cl):
(Is) In s,, Socrates is bigger (than Theaetetus).

(2s) Socrates lost no height between si and s2.
(3s) In s2, Socrates is smaller (than Theaetetus).
As Socrates explains the contradiction here (cl-4):
For I am later what I was not earlier, without having come-to-be (that);
for without coming-to-be it is not possible to have come-to-be, and I
was not ever coming-to-be smaller when none of my bulk was being
destroyed
* i ^
€i|xi *
Tov 7
OÒK &
He is
n and
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It is at this point that Socrates says to Theaetetus (155d5-7):
But do you understand now why these things are like that, from what
we have Protagoras saying, or haven't you got it yet?
òtXÂà TTÓTepov |xav0áveis ¥|St] Si' 4ò TaÛTa tolo Or' èorìv è£ co v

tòv IlpiOTa^ópav <1)a|xèv Xéêiv, o'3na);
and Theaetetus has not got it yet. This is surely natural. We last had
Protagoras talking about situations in whičh things or motions ('agents')
are perceived by eyes or people ('patients'), and insisting that bright and
dark colors, and sights, had to be thought of as coming-into-being in the
agent-patient interaction in those situations. Accordingly, the sentences
(la)-(3a) made reference to agents while (lp)-(3p) made reference to pa-
tients, and the air of paradox in each set was removable by filling in the
missing reference. But the sentences (ld)-(3d) and (ls)-(3s) do not refer
to perceiving patients at all; they refer to some dice and to Socrates, who
might as well have been a tree, since his perceptual capacities are irrelevant
to the example. And, on the face of it, what air of paradox they have is
to be removed by restoring references to more dice and other people relevant
only for their height. For that matter, the examples could have been re-
written in terms of sets of prime numbers and lines in geometrical con-
structions:59 it is not at all clear what the theory of perception has to do
with anything.60 In short, there seems to be nothing here that (P) by itself
could not handle.
But there must be more to it, for the introduction of Apparitions I-III
has blocked the removal of the paradoxes by simple restoration of the
elided terms of comparison. Once we concede the applicability of the
Apparitions, we have conceded that the dice have changed, and that
Socrates has changed; restoraton of elided terms, on the other hand, would
lead us to deny that the dice or Socrates have changed.61 This is an example
of the tension in the composite position previously mentioned: what
Socrates wants to do here is tend in the direction of denying stability, and
the denial of objectivity is allowed to take a back seat.
Socrates asked Theaetetus whether he saw the relevance of the composite
position for the puzzles, and Theaetetus said he did not. So now Socrates
goes on (156a-157c); since he stops again (156c3-4) to ask Theaetetus
whether he sees the relevance, he must think he is still on the same track,
despite his failure subsequently to return to the puzzles. Let us see.
We take for our starting-point (apxTļ 156a3) the claim that all is change,
but distinguish two forms of it: one with the capacity to act, the other to
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undergo. We have already been speaking of the 'agent' and the 'patient';
it is here (156a6-7)62 that Socrates first formally introduces the terminology.
But now the agent and the patient are forms of change (156a5-6), where
before they were perceived objects and perceiving subjects, or at least their
sense-organs. Their interaction produces, as before, paired offspring: per-
cepts and percepta (aia0T)Tá), every instance of one matched with a unique
instance of the other (156a7-c3). But these too are changes, since every-
thing is. The difference between these changes and the previous ones is
only that the former are slower: the eye and the stone, say, are relatively
stationary,63 whereas the changes that they induce, the seeing on the one
side and the occurrent brightness on the other, are instantaneous (156c8-
e7).
In this account, the stone and the eye have been replaced by slow
motions. Socrates nowhere outright says that the stone and the eye are
slow motions, but what he does say presupposes it. Earlier he had referred
to eyes (153d9, etc.) and then dogs, other animals, and men (154a4, a6)
as perceivers, and had located the perceptum between the eye and the thing
it meets, which was characterized as the 'appropriate motion' (ttjv
7Tpoaf|Ko'xrav cķopav, 153e6-7). Now it is the interaction between two
slow motions that produces the percepta and percepts (156a7-b2): the
motions have replaced the perceived objects and perceivers. This is quite
clear in 156c-157a. The talk in 156c7-d3 is of slow motions again, but in
156d3, el, e2, e4 the slow motion on the perceiving end is referred to as
an eye, and in 15e5-6 that on the perceived end is said to be 'a stick, a
stone, or whatever'.
We may say, then, that the stone and the eye have been brought into
line with (H). But that does not mean that they have been brought into
line with (P): to do that, they must be conceived as non-transcendent, as
not existing (or coming-to-be) outside individual perceptual transactions.
But to the extent that eyes and stones are conceived as relatively slow
motions, it sounds as if they are to be conceived as transcendent: as
surviving from one transaction to another. That would mean that the con-
tradiction between (H) and (P) comes to rest right here: there really are,
(H) would be saying, slow motions whose existence is not contingent on
the occurrence of perceptual transactions.
What Socrates next says addresses this point, but it presents a problem
(156e7-157a7):
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And we must take the others (hard, hot, and all) the same way:
157 none to be, itself, in its own right - we were saying that back then -
but all things, and of all sorts, come-into-being from change, since
even what acts and what undergoes cannot, as they say64, firmly
be conceived, singly,65 to be anything. For there isn't anything that
acts before it runs into what undergoes, or that undergoes before
5 it runs into what acts; and what runs into something and acts will
show up undergoing when it falls in with another (thing).
Kai ToXXa òr) othro), crKÂ.T1pòv Kai 6ep|xòv

Kai iràvTa, tòv aírròv Tpóirov iyi toX^tttcov, ccbrò |xèv Ka0'
157 octnò |jlt|Ôcv eivai, 'ò órj Kai tótc e'é70|xev, èv 8è rg Trpòs
frMtiXa 0ļūLi'i(f ttclvtcl 7Í7vea0ai Kai TravTOia olttò tt|s
KivfļCT€0)s feirei Kai tò ttoioûv eivai ti Kai tò iráaxov aÒTwv
em evòs vof|aai, ws <1>acriv, oùk eivai TrayCo)*;. o'rre 7àp
5 ttoiovv èaTÍ ti upiv 'àv, t<^> TráaxovTi oi)ve'0ļj, oVrre iráaxov
TTpiv 'àv Tļ> TTOIOÛVTI- TO li TlVl ODVCXÖOV Kai TTOIOUV
av TrpoaTreoòv iraaxov avecķavTļ.
The first clause (156e7-157al) here simply generalizes what has just been
said about bright color to include 'hard, hot, and all': these too must not
be conceived as being, existing, in their own rights, but as consisting in
changes. The next clause (157a 1-3) apparently generalizes yet further: all
things, of whatever sort come under the ban. As the third clause (157a3-
5) tells us, that specifically includes the agent and the patient as well: that
is, the slower changes as well as the quicker ones.
And then, in the final sentence, Socrates elaborates. He first says (157a4-
6): the agent and patient can't be firmly conceived as being anything, since
there is no agent apart from a patient, or patient apart from an agent. One
might be inclined to understand this to mean that agent and patient only
come-to-be within the perceptual transaction. But then it would be hard
to make sense of characterizing them as slower changes. So we might
think again: perhaps Socrates is not saying that what acts (the agent) and
what undergoes (the patient) are confined to the particular perceptual trans-
action, but that what acts doesn't act outside the transaction, and what
undergoes doesn't undergo outside it. And that is confirmed by the rest
of the sentence: "and what runs into something and acts will show up
undergoing when it falls in with another (thing)" (157a6-7). This plainly
suggests66 that certain things pass from one perceptual transaction to
another.
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But what things? Agents and patients. These were slow changes. We
might suppose, then, that the stone and the eye, then, which are now
construed as slow changes, are what go from one perceptual transaction
to another.67 But if we read on, we find that this cannot be right. And that
is as well, for this is our inconsistency facing us again, and sooner than
we might have hoped. If this theory leaves anything outside the perceptual
transactions, whatever is left out will no longer be subject to Protagorean
subjectivism. The ultimate ineradicability of the contradiction implies that
something must indeed be left out. But it would be a shame if it were
something as down home as rock and eyes: the contradiction would be so
blatant that it would be hard to work up much interest in the theory. So
let us read on.
Socrates next says this (157a7-c2):
So from all these things (we get) just what we were saying from
the beginning: that nothing is one thing just in its own right, but
b always comes-to-be for someone, and we must delete the (word)
'be' everywhere, although we have often been forced, even just
now, by habit and artlessness, to use it. But, according to the
account of our wise ones, we oughtn't do it, nor allow 'something'
5 or 'its' or 'my'68 or 'this' or 'that' or any word that brings a halt,
but speak, in accordance with nature, of 'comings-to-be' and
'being-acted-ons' and 'ceasings-to-be' and 'alterings' - since any-
one who brings halt by his speech is easily refuted when he does
that. And that is what we must say part by part, and about many
(of them) collected together as well, any collection to which
c (the name of) man, stone, and each animal and sort of things is
applied.
&ot€ e£ airávTíov tovtíov,

'óirep è£ òtpxTjs €Xé7ojx€v, oûSèv eivai %v avrò Ka0'
b abro, aXXá tivi aei 7Í7vea0ai, tò S' eivai TravTaxóOev
èÇaipeTCov, oty VSti Afieis iroXXà Kai 'ápTi iļva^KacrjieBa
ííttò auvTļOeias Kai avemaTijixoowris xp^°"öai aírnj). tò 8'
où Sei, tòs ó tü)v aocļkov X070S, o'3tc ti oiryxwpeív o'>re tov
5 oW èjxoí) oVrre TÓSe oV3t' eKeivo oYrre 'áXXo oùôev 'óvojxa 'óti
'àv ioTfj, aXXà KaTà <ķvviv <|>0€77€O-0ai 7i7vójxeva Kai
TTOiovjJieva Kai airoXXv|X€va Kai aXXoiov|xeva* ¿as eáv tí tis
CTTiļOļ) T<ļ) XÓ7<1), eť)eXe7KTos ó TOVTO irouòv. ôeí Se Kai KaTà
ixépos ovtü) Xc7€iv Kai irepi ttoXXwv a0poiCT0évT(ov,
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c 8t) a0poía|AaTi 'áv0p(oiróv t€ TÍ0evTai Kai 'iöov Kai
'éKaorov £<póv t€ Kai eiôoç.
We are here prohibited from using a number of words, and many of

these words have been used in constructing the position that prohibits their
use. Perhaps we should think of these words as part of the ladder that must
be thrown away once we have reached the top.69
First, we must avoid 'to be', although Socrates says he has been
inadvertently using it (157bl-3). In fact, the immediately preceding occur-
rences of 'be'70 were all in the context of stating the Juncture Claim itself:
that is, in denying 'being' in any application. The only real slip in the
entire passage that states the Heraclitean theory (156a5-c3, c6-157a7) is
in 156a5 (a3-5: 4 'Our starting-point (stated) . . . that all was [rp] change,
and nothing apart from this").
Then there is a list of words - 'something', 'its', 'my', 'this', and 'that'
that must be avoided since they 'bring a halt' (157b4-5). Here Socrates'
record is not so clean: We have had 'this' in 156a5 and c671, and 'some-
thing' in d3 and 157a7. The last is the most blatant lapse: "what runs into
something and acts will show up undergoing when it falls in with another
(thing)", but it is hard not to look at the words appended to the Juncture
Claim right in 157a8-bl (". . .but always comes-to-be for someone ")
without subtracting a few points from Socrates' score.
What about such words as 'eye', and 'stone'? Don't these bring things
to a stop as much as 'this' and 'that'?
The last sentence of our passage says something about these words: that
we shall have to say the same thing 'part by part' and also about collections
to which we give the names 'man' or 'stone'. What we shall have to say
about these cases is presumably the Juncture Claim again: in none of them
is anything one thing just by itself, but always comes-to-be for someone.
The cases in question are: 'part by part', that is, the cases of brightness,
hotness, and so on, the individual per cepta already dealt with, and col-
lections of these that get a single name like 'man' or 'stone'. So here a
rock is a collection of per cepta. The percepta only come-to-be for per-
ceivers; they are not anything by themselves. So neither are the rocks they
compose. And the same would be true for eyes.
But, in the case of the percepta , their not being anything by themselves,
but only coming-to-be for perceivers, means that they are not transcendent
with respect to the perceptual transactions in which they occur: they do
not survive from one to another. So neither do the rocks they compose.
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We asked: what can get from one perceptual transaction to another, if
we take seriously the implication of 157a6-7 to that effect? It looked as if
the stone might make it. But now it cannot. Is there anything left that can
get from one transaction to another?
If we say that there is, there is only one possibility I can see. We have
treated the replacement of the stone with a slow motion as a matter of
identifying the stone and the motion. We might now say that the treatment
of 'stone' as simply a word we use for a collection of per cepta supersedes
this identification: what is really out there, going from one perceptual
transaction to another, is a slow motion.
Then this is where our contradiction comes to rest: the slow motions
are objective.
There is an alternative: we might deny that the implication of 157a6-7
is to be taken seriously, and count it as just more talk on the ladder that
must be thrown away, along with Socrates' inadvertent uses of the words
he explicitly proscribes. We could construe him as intending to say some-
thing more non-committal: that if an agent were anything apart from its
acting, it would turn out just as much a patient on another occasion. This
makes for the difficulty already noted: the so-called 'slow' changes or
motions are now just as instantaneous as the supposedly fast ones.
But under this alternative, the contradiction is pushed back as far as it
can go: what is objective, is the fact that there are only perceptual trans-
actions. So, in fact, I prefer this alternative, despite the difficulty of
explaining the slowness of the slow motions. But I shall not insist on it.
In any case, we do not have the wind, the wine, and the stone to cope
with any more: the wind that felt cold to Socrates is a collection of percepta
(cold, a roaring in his ears, dampness, and so on) each presented only to
him; the wind that did not feel cold to Theaetetus, which we began by
taking for the same wind, is not the same wind, but another collection of
percepta each presented only to Theaetetus.72
And Socrates' dice have gone the way of the wind. The dice in S! have
as one component in the collection that constitutes them the perceived
character of being fewer, presented to someone comparing them with
twelve, and the dice in s2 have in their collection the distinct character of
being more, presented to someone comparing them with four. So we do
not have the same thing, the same collection, any more.
So the answer to Socrates' question (see above pp. 80, 81), 'what would
Protagoras have to say about the dice?' is this.
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The Apparitions are trivially true:73 coming-to-be bigger or smaller is
contradictory to being the same size, as I and II tell us,74 and wherever
anything is something it used not to be, it came-to-be that, as III tells us.
These claims are analytic of the word 'be' (see 155a5, a9, b2).
What is wrong is in the claims made in (ld)-(3d). (2d) in particular tells
us that the dice have not been added to or subtracted from: the idea is that
these are the same dice. And they have to be the same dice, for the
difference between (Id) and (3d) to constitute a conflict. But that is the
false presupposition: in fact, in Sj there comes-to-be a collection of percepta
one of which is the perceptum 'few', and we apply the name 'dice' to the
collection; in s2 there comes-to-be a collection one perceptum of which is
'many' to which we also apply the name 'dice', but this is a different
collection.
And in the same way Socrates at the end of the year is no longer the
same thing as Socrates at the beginning of the year, so there is no conflict
between the situation in which Socrates is taller than Theaetetus and that
in which he is shorter than Theaetetus.
4.2.3 False beliefs and perceivers (157e-160c).
With the wind, the dice and the perceived agent Socrates, we also lost
the perceiving patients Socrates and Theaetetus, who were once stable,
standing in the wind and comparing their dice and heights. This is implicit
in the above and explicit in the sequel.
It is not that the purpose of the sequel is to make explicit the dissolution
of the perceiving subject. Rather, Socrates' intent is to handle an objection.
People who are dreaming, sick, or mad - I shall call them 'deviants' - are
commonly taken to have false perceptions, awarenesses, or beliefs (157e-
158b; iļ/evSeis ala0Tļa€is, 158al; i|ievôr|8oÇáôixrtv, b2): some think they
are gods, others that they are flying (158a9-b4). The defender of the claim
that knowledge is perception (158a5-6), i.e., the claim "that the things
that appear so to each person are so for him to whom they appear" (158a6-
7, cf. a2-3) must provide an account of the beliefs of such deviants that
shows there are in fact no false beliefs involved.
The position to be defended here is again the general denial of false

belief; there is nothing specifically perceptual about the deviant's belief
that he is a god. But Socrates deals with all these cases using only the
unamended theory of perception: he does not specifically tell us how to
handle the deviant's belief that he is a god.
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He deals with the beliefs of deviants in two phases.
In the first (158b5-e4) he argues that we have no criterion75 for settling
who is deviant and who not: no 'sign to indicate' (t€K|atìpiov
airoôeíÇai, 158b9) that we are not asleep and dreaming (158b8-cl), or
are not sick or insane (158d8-10); that we have nothing 'clear to show
which of these believings is true' (aa<J>ès evSeiijao-Oai óiroia tovtcov
tü)v 8o£aa|xáTü)v aÁnrjOri, 158e2-3).
The relevance of this point is not immediately clear,76 but it is best not
taken as an independent argument.77 There is no criterion. Starting at 158e5
the defender of (H) is going to tell us why there is not, and cannot be,
any criterion: it is because there is no question of falsehood here. The
claim that there is no criterion does not help to show this, and this is what
needs to be shown; once it is shown, it becomes clear why there is no
criterion.
The argument that is supposed to show that there is no falsehood even

in the percepts of the deviant is of great complexity.
Suppose we employ lhe example on which Socrates will eventually
focus: he is at one time healthy, tastes some wine, and it tastes sweet to
him; at another time he is sick, tastes the same wine, and it tastes bitter.
We are to show that in both cases he is right.
The way this works is predictable. Socrates healthy is a collection of
quick changes, and in conjunction with the wine gives birth to sweetness;
Socrates ill is another collection of quick changes, and in conjunction with
the wine gives birth to bitterness. The sweetness is really there in the first
transaction and the bitterness in the second; so the wine really is sweet in
the first and bitter in the second. There is no contradiction, because the
wine is not really the same both times: that it would have to be both sweet
and bitter shows this.
In setting up the example, we spoke of the 'same' wine; Socrates himself

refers to 'the' wine (see 159d4 with ell, d7-8). Here again, in conveying
the theory, we are using language that the theory condemns: this is more
ladder-talk, that must be thrown away once the theory is in place. We can
see what makes this talk useful. The difference that makes a difference is
in Socrates, so we think of ourselves as approaching the same wine with
a different Socrates; in fact, the wine would not survive from the one
Socrates to the other.
Let us turn now to Socrates' presentation of the case. It involves one

further twist.
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He begins by asking Theaetetus to accept an abstract principle to the
effect that where something is altogether (iravTairao-iv), wholly (<d'q)s)
different - that is, he says, not just different in one way but the same in
another way (|atj . . . rp jxèv toùtòv . . . rņ 8è 'éTcpov) - from another,
it shares no capacity with that other (158e7-10). Theaetetus accepts the
principle - provided the thing in question is quite different (kojjli8||
*€Tcpov, 159a 1-2). We may write this as:
(PI) X is completely different from y - > none of x's capabilities
is the same as any of y's.
He explains 'completely different' as meaning not the same in one respect,
different in another (158e9-10), and Theaetetus accepts the Principle under
the proviso that x is 'utterly' different from y (159al-2).
The talk of 'capacities' here harks back to the Theory of Perception.
That operates with two forms of change, one with the 'capacity' of acting,
the other with that of undergoing (156a5-7: see pp. 82-83 above). The
Principle Socrates here wants tells us that, where two things share no
features, they will also be incapable of generating the same offspring:
percepts or percepta. In the particular case of interest here, it will be a
question of perceivers that are 'completely' different, and consequently
incapable of generating the same percepts, even in conjunction with the
same perceived object: the wine, in our case, conjoined once with an ailing
Socrates and again with Socrates in health.
What we have yet to see is that these perceivers are 'completely' dif-
ferent, share no features. This is the additional twist alluded to above.
Immediately after propounding (PI), Socrates makes the extremely sloppy
suggestion that 'that sort of thing' is 'unlike' (159a3-4). He apparently takes
this to mean that x's being wholly different from y is its being unlike y: for
he takes it as an immediate consequence that (159a6-8):
if something comes-to-be like or unlike »either itself or another
(thing), we shall say that the one growing like comes-to-be the
same, and the one growing unlike different.
Sil. E'l 'dpa ti ou|xßaiv€i 'ó|ioióv tí^ 7i>yv€a6ai 'tj
àvó|xoiov, et/re èavT<1> et/re &XX(ļ>, 0ļioiovp,€vov |xèv toùtòv
<|>f|CTO|X€v 7L7V€aöai, avo|xoiovļxevov 8è 'éT€pov;
Socrates uses 'comes-to-be' here in an effort to keep away from the pro-
scribed verb 'is'. We can perhaps keep clearer heads by speaking with the
vulgar and saying 'is' instead. So we have, for his suggestion or its
immediate consequence:
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(P2) X is completely different from y <- > x is unlike y.
In fact, Socrates will need only the implication from right to left:
(P2rl) x is unlike y - > x is completely different from y,
for he is going to want to show that the healthy Socrates is completely

different from the ill Socrates.
As we should ordinarily think, this implication is quite false. Even if

'completely different' just meant 4 =£ ', the fact that Socrates is healthy one
day and ill the next does not make him a different person. But 'completely
different' was supposed to mean something even stronger: that x and y
had no features in common. And the fact that x and y differ in some feature
(are unlike) is even farther from making them different in every feature.78
But suppose we take the x's and y's to be collections of quick changes.
These are individual occurrences: that we characterize them as sweetnesses
(or hotnesses) cannot be taken to show any community between them.

Then 4x is like y' means 'x shares a quick change with y'. But each such
change is unique to the transaction in which it occurs (154a2; see p. 77
above). So if x is like y, x is the same as y. And if x is unlike y, it shares
no quick changes with y, and hence is completely different from y.79
So the implication (P2rl) can be justified if we assume as background
the theory of perception already developed in the name of (H). Socrates
promptly reminds us of relevant features of that theory: it told us that there
are unlimitedly many agents and patients (159a 10- 12),
159al3 SOC.: And further that one of them, mating with another, and
then another, will beget not the same (things) but different (ones)?
b THT.: Certainly.
2ft. Kal |XTļv 'ÓTi 7€ 'áXXo 'aXX<j> ouixjjiei^vvjievov K
'a''(ļ) où Torfrrà òtXX' 'cTepa 7€vvf|a€i;
b 0EAI. īlavu |xèv ovv.
We might put this down as a separate principle; in the form releva
the subsequent argument it would be:
(P3) If agent a meets patients p! and p2 (pi =čp2), the resulting off
spring Oj and o2 will be different.
But this is hardly independent of (PI) and (P2), especially if the abo
correct about the justification for (P2rl).
Socrates now asks Theaetetus to consider the patients Socrates-he
and Socrates-ill (159b2-4): the one whole (the word is supplied
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Theaetetus in b6), he says, is unlike the other whole (b4-9), and so differ-
ent (blO-11). And, he goes on, the same will follow with 'healthy' and
'ill' replaced by any other terms such as 'asleep' and 'awake' (cl-3).
We could say, looking at (P2rl): the patients in these cases are com-
pletely different. And then (PI) would tell us that the two have no common
capacities: they will be incapable of generating the same offspring.
Alternatively, we could just look at (P3) to get the same result.
This is the result Socrates wants: e.g., a drink of wine (as agent) will
beget different children in its union with Socrates-healthy from those it
would beget with Socrates-ill (159c4-10): in the first case, they will be
sweetness and a sweet taste, and in the second, bitterness and a bitter taste
(cll-e6). And the fundamental reason for this is that Socrates-healthy and
Socrates-sick are not the same (159d7-9):
SOC.: But whenever (it gets hold of me) ailing, first, it does
not, in truth, get the same (person), does it? For it runs into one
unlike.
THT.: Yes.
Sil. ' 'Orav 8è aaöevouvTa, 'áÂÀo ti irpàrov |xèv rg ótXT10€i<¡t

où tòv aùròv 'eXaßev; avofxoíy 7&p 8tj irpoofiXOev.
©E AI. Nat.
Of course, then, the use of the proper name 'Socrates' has been mis-
leading throughout: It suggests that there is something the same in the one
transaction and in the other, but there is not. It is another case of Socrates
making use of terminology that his analysis will ultimately show is ille-
gitimate. What he says next shows how illegitimate it is (159e7-160al):
SOC: So I shall never come-to-be perceiving anything else in

this way;80 for another perception (is) of another (thing), and
160 makes the one perceiving a different sort (of thing), and a different
(thing) ....
Síí. 0'3kouv kyú T€ oùôèv ìxWo ttotc êvfļaoļAai ovrcos
aiCT0avó|X€vo<;- TOÛ7àp ftXXov aïa0T)CTis, Kai btWoíov
160 Kal &'Xov noiet tòv aia0avó|X€vov ....
That is: I shall never have this percept in conjunction with anything else,
for with anything else there would be a different percept, and hence I
would not be the same thing any more. My identity varies with my percepts;
I am not there on any other perceptual occasion.
Neither is the object I am now perceiving (l60al-3):
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160 ... nor will that which acts on me ever, running into another
(thing) and begetting the same (thing) come-to-be of that sort; for
from another (thing), begetting another (thing), it will beget another
sort of thing.
160 . . . o'3t' €K€Îvo tò ttoioûv è|xè jjutittot'
'áXXťp CTVveXõòv TaÙTÒv 7€vvf|aav toioûtov 7€VT|Tai- air
7&p ' aXXov 'áXXo 7€vvf|aav àXXoíov êvfļCTeTai.
So neither the perceiver nor the thing perceived exist outside the pe
ceptual situation (160b5-7, bl0-c2):
It remains that we are (if we 'are') or come-to-be (if we 'come-to

be') for each other, since necessity ties our being together, but do
not tie it together with anything else, or even with us our
selves . . ..81 One can't say that anything is, or comes-into-bein
itself, by itself, or let anyone else say that: so the account we'v
gone through tells us.
5 À€i/7T€Tai òr] oì|xai iļļxtv aXXTļ'ois, €Ït' €cr|X€v, eivai, et/re
"yi/yvoêöa, 7Í"yv€CT0ai, erreí/irep Iļļjuov avdryier] Trp oixría
o"uvÔ€t i x€v, avvôeí 8è oí)ôevi tü>v 'áXXwv oí>8' a v V||x
orirroís.
10 ... aùrò ôè e<f>' aťrroO ti 'tj 'òv 't1 7i7vó|xevov oWre
c aímp XeKTéov o'rr' 'áXXov X670VT0S oťrroóeKTéov, ws ò XÓ70S
'óv 8ieXTļXv0aļxev aTļ|xaiv€i.
And this is what guarantees the truth of my percepts, even if I am

dreaming, sick, or mad (160c7-9):
Therefore my perception is true for me - for it is of the being that's

mine - and I (am) judge, according to Protagoras, of the things that
are for me, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they
are not.
Sil. 'AXT10T1S &pa €jjloì Tļ èjJLT1 alaOâis - Trp 70p 4|xf|s

oímas ael ecruv - Kai €70) Kpirrļs Kotià tòv īlpamôpav
Tü>V T€ 'ÓVTÍOV €|AOl ü)<5 'COTI, Kal TÍOV |XT| 'ÓVTÍOV COS OÙ K 'éOTIV.
All that remains is for Socrates to wrap the package up: since the individual
is now falsehood-free, there can be no objection to saying he knows the
things that seem to him so (160dl-4), and (T), (P), and (H) have "fallen
together into the same thing" (160d5-e2).
We began with eyes, bodies that felt chills, tongues to taste the sweet-
ness, stones, winds, and wine. We no longer have these: the wind is now
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nothing apart from its making Socrates feel cold, damp, and so on, and
Socrates is nothing apart from a collection of such percepts. The wind,
etc., have been replaced by active and passive changes that apparently
wander slowly but freely, as at a crowded party, from one conversation
to the next.
In fact, the party may have progressed to the point where there are only
the conversations, and no real people. This depends on the status of
Socrates' talk of slow changes. If the theory is telling us that certain
motions, the slow changes, can survive from one perceptual transaction
to another, then there are at least these left in the party to do the conversing.
But then they are not to be identified with the wind, the wine, and Socrates,
for all of these are different from one transaction to another. Again, I
prefer to think that the talk of slow changes is mere talk on the ladder.
Then it is getting very hard to see what is not talk on the ladder, what
there is left for the theory to be saying. But, after all, Socrates is going
to find the theory contradictory, on the ground that if it were correct, there
would be no language in which to state it (183ab). And that, I think, comes
of focusing on this difficulty, in particular on the vocabulary in which the
quick motions themselves are being described. But that is beyond the scope
of this paper.
5. Conclusion
If I am right, Socrates, by way of explaining Theaetetus' attempted

definition of knowledge, brings in a theory, (P), that alters its sense, and
then, by way of explaining that, brings in a theory, (H), that contradicts
it. What is to be said about this?
5.1 (T)and(P)
Theaetetus' definition was, in effect: knowledge of something is aware-

ness of its truth. There have been worse attempts to define knowledge.
The introduction of (P) alters the sense of 'awareness': what one is aware
of becomes what seems to one to be so. The definition turns into 'know-
ledge of something is belief in its truth'. There have been worse attempts
at defining knowledge than this, too, but not nearly as many.
Is Socrates unfair? If so, there must be someone to whom he is being
unfair. It is not Theaetetus: he is, here, anyway, a character in a play. He
is not, as far as we can tell, a stand-in for some historical personage.
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And there is one thing that is seriously wrong with his stab at defining
knowledge: it is boring. It is like dictionary definitions of knowledge:
'cognition' 'cognizance'. The OED gives 'acquaintance with a fact; per-
ception ... of a fact or matter', and this is Theaetetus' initial stab, if I
am right. These definitions are obviously correct, in a broad, clumsy way.
To someone who knows English, they are quite uninformative. If there is
something wrong with any of them, we shall not be much wiser knowing
what.
Still, there is a way of going on, if there is some interesting, informative

way to explain the content of such a definition. We might, looking at
Theaetetus' definition, try to say what 'awareness' consists in. That is just
what Socrates does.
He gives a minimalist answer: one's awareness of something is simply

its appearing so to one. This makes the definition anything but boring. At
first sight, it is outrageously false: we all know, and Plato does too, of
cases of belief that do not count as knowledge, namely, all the false beliefs.
But then we might try to see if there is some way around these counter-
examples. Again, that is just what Socrates does. He brings in, and argues
for, a position that is both historically important and philosophically
interesting according to which there are no false beliefs: Protagorean
subjectivism. And he points out that, at that rate, there is nothing standing
in the way of subjectivized 'awareness' being knowledge.
Seeing what is wrong with the definition reconstrued in this way will
be learning something: it will at least be learning why Protagorean sub-
jectivism is wrong.
And besides, the rest of the dialogue involves further determination of
what is, essentially, Theaetetus' first attempt: we go on from the consid-
eration of mere awareness to consider awareness qualified as true, and
then qualified as true together with an account ('070s). The method is
what is sometimes called that of division, and the genus divided is supplied
by Theaetetus. But here I go considerably beyond what I have argued for.
So I see nothing in what Socrates does here to shake one's finger at. I
should like to call the whole business 'dialectic'. But I do not mean that
he is employing a super-logic, or something better than logic.
5.2 (P) and (H)
The contradiction here is another matter. Protagoreanism tells me that

there is no saying what the world is like; Heracliteanism tells me that this
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is because the world is in constant flux.
In part, the contradiction here is of the sort sometimes called a 'prag-

matic' or 'performative' contradiction. For it might in fact be true that the
world is in constant flux, and that for that reason, none of us is in any
position to say what the world is really like. This blocks us from ever
being in a position to tell that the world is in constant flux. Gods, looking
down on us, might be able to see that our world is in constant flux, and
that this stands in the way of our knowing anything about it, so that we
are confined to what seems to us to be true.
There is a little more to it than that, for there is a little more to Prota-
goreanism than that. Protagoreanism tells us not only that we can't tell
what goes on out there, but that the reason we can't is that there is nothing
going on out there: there are no falsehoods. This makes the contradiction
not just 'pragmatic' but outright.
But it also threatens to bring the contradiction into Protagoreanism itself.
If there are no falsehoods, there is a falsehood: the claim that there are
falsehoods.
This is problematic. Socrates' refutation of Protagoreanism turns a point

like this one, and it is a matter of some dispute whether it comes off. I
shall not discuss that here; it is enough to notice that the refutation purports
to show the position self-undermining. This self-undermining character
has to do with the position's being put out as true. This makes it relevantly
similar to the 'pragmatic' contradiction we noticed above. There the trouble
was that the position in question was one that could not be known to be
true if it was true. Here the trouble is that the position cannot be true if
it is true.
Consider something that Aristotle says about Plato's intellectual back-

ground C Metaphysics A 6. 987a32-bl):
For having first in youth become familiar with Cratylus and with the
Heraclitean beliefs, to the effect that all the perceptibles are always
flowing and there is no knowledge of them, he supposed these (things
to be) so even later on ... .
Now if there is no knowledge of perceptible things, there is no knowing

that they are in constant change. This is precisely the pragmatic self-
undermining we noticed above about the combination of (P) and (H).
This report of Aristotle's is, of course, part of his report about the
development of Plato's theory of forms: the belief in Heracliteanism is
retained, according to Aristotle, but restricted to the world of perceptible
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things; the world of forms is exempt from it, and so there can be knowledge
of it. Plainly this does not obviate the contradiction: that there can be
knowledge of something else does not explain how we can know that
perceptible things are constantly changing. To know that is to know some-
thing about perceptible things. If their constant change means that we can
know nothing about them, we cannot know that about them either.
The contradiction between (P) and (H) is an exacerbated form of this
contradiction. If it is right, Plato, at some point, accepted the latter. So
we might say: the contradiction between (P) and (H) is one that Socrates
falls into through Plato's unawareness of it. But I do not think that is
correct.
He is, later in the Theaetetus , going to argue that each of (T), (P), and
(H) are wrong. He takes them one by one: he does not, in particular, play
(P) against (H). His arguments against (P) and (H) are attempts to show
that they are, each taken by itself, self-undermining. So he is aware of
the sort of contradiction we are discussing here. It would be surprising -
not impossible, but surprising - if he were unable to see that that sort of
contradiction much more blatantly affects the composite of (P) and (H).
So I shall make a suggestion, without arguing for it. Plato's Parmenides
is already in the past. That showed that the theory of forms was in trouble.
Plato is now asking what sort of theory he needs. He retreats to the theory
he had held about the perceptible world, forms apart, and asks: was that
much acceptable? And he answers: no. Not only do the components of
that theory fail to work together, even in separation they are self-under-
mining.
Arguing for this is part of a larger project.
NOTES
*The first draft of this paper was completed in the fall of 1977; it would be impossible
to register all the debts it owes to others. The writings of My les Burnyeat have been a great
encouragement, since the extensive areas of agreement between him and me are the result
of independent research. Most recently, discussion with James V. Bachman provoked a
number of clarifications; he has written on this subject in his Dissertation [1986], particularly
chapter I, "Learning from Protagoras". Numerous last-minute changes were made under the
advice of Catherine Culver and Margaret Dancy.
1. The word èmoTT||XT1 is a count-noun in Greek: it naturally takes plurals, for which
reason it is frequently translated 'science'.
2. On this see Burnyeat [1977a].
3. See Knorr [1975] passim , Burnyeat [1978], Knorr [1979], Burnyeat [1979b].
4. See Burnyeat [1977b].
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5. The conflict between my view and that of Burnyeat [1982] 6-7 n. 2 is less than may
appear at first sight: Burnyeat's Th' 'Prot', and 'Her' are blanket designations for
whole positions, whereas I shall use '(T)' '(P)' and '(H)' for specific theses. Still, some
conflict remains.
6. E.g., Jackson [1884] 246, Archer-Hind [1886] 149, Cornford [1935] 48-51, Nakhnikian
[1955/56], [1956/57]. For a more nuanced view, see Modrak [1981].
7. Scholars have often supposed that Plato has made Theaetetus the representative of some
historical position. For references to various attempts, see Friedländer [1969] 488 n. 20,
489-90 n. 28, and Diès [1924] 150 n. 1. Capelle [1962] wanted to identify the sophis-
ticates who later give us a theory of perception with neo-Heraclitean contemporaries of
Plato: but the evidence for their views (and even for their existence) is the Theaetetus
itself.
Cornford [1935] 29, presumably influenced by Campbell [1861] 32 = [1883] 36,

thought of Theaetetus as espousing 4 'the position of common sense, that knowledge
comes to us from the external world through the senses". I do not see much in favor
of this view: hardly Phaedo 83c, cited by Campbell (loc. c/r.), where Socrates tells us
that things seen are taken by the soul to be 'clearest and truest' (because, he says, they
afford intense pleasures and pains).
Benardete [1984] 1. 103 argues that Socrates correctly concludes, when he hears Theae-
tetus say "knowledge is perception", that this answer must have come from a book,
viz., Protagoras'. I am not convinced: that Theaetetus' answer is Protagoras' position
does not seem to me at all obvious.
8. Some interpretations simply assume that (T) is to be read as 'knowledge is sense-

perception': e.g., those of Alexander [1902] esp. 171, Natorp [1921] 102, Sayre [1969]
(on pp. 62-63, Protagoras' position is 'limited' by that of Theaetetus "to the range of
perceptual awareness"), and Klein [1977] 85. Contrast, e.g., Gulley [1962] 77, Capelle
[1960] 267-68. See esp. Frede [1987] 3-4.
The refutation of (T) (184b-186e) interprets the claim as identifying knowledge with
sense-perception. But this is the result of an explicit narrowing of the position (see
179cd), which takes place only after the refutation of (P): (P) is there thought of as
covering the entire range of possible objects of belief, which is only what we should
expect (see the next section). And here, at the beginning, Socrates treats (P) as a way
of interpreting (T); so he is not, here, treating (T) as confined to sense-perception.
9. For Greek, apart from 149d5, cited immediately below, cf., e.g., Hippocrates [?], Off.
1 ('t) ofioia 't} &vó|ioia, òtpxTf» òtuò t<î>v |A€7Íotü>v, àm> tòv phíotíov, ¿tirò
Twv iravTTļ irávTcoç 7ivo)aKO|iéva>v, & Kai i8eív Kal öi/yetv Kai ¿tKOÛom Motiv
8t Kai tt' 'ói1/€i Kai TT) Kai tjj aKop Kai pivi Kai tíj 7'ū>aCTTļ Kai ttj 7v<í>|at1
'cor iv aloT0éa0ar ¿, ois 7ivü)ctko|X€v, 'áiraaiv 'coti 7va>vai), and Socrates' use
of the noun in Ap. 40c6 (which covers all awareness). There are a great many more
examples.
See also Geyser [1913] 9 (but I take the notion of perception to cover considerably
more even than Geyser does); Glidden [1975] 116 n. 17 (but Glidden seems to think
the verb is ambiguous; rather, I think, it is just very general).
10. In contemporary misusage, he concentrates on 'knowledge by acquaintance' rather than
'knowledge by description'. The terminology is Bertrand Russell's: see, e.g., Russell
[1910/11]; Russell [1912], pp. 44 and 46 of the ed. of 1954. Russell's way of drawing
the distinction is not consistent, and no one any longer means by it what he did, or, as
far as I can tell, anything much at all. It would be better to do without it.
11. As is 'is aware', provided we also exchange 'that' for 'of.
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12. Perhaps a peculiarity of Greek is relevant here: where a Greek verb for 'know', 'see',
'perceive' (any 'veridical' verb, as I call it below) takes a sentential complement, the
complement can be written as a 4 that' -clause, or, as easily, as a participial phrase (clause):
"Socrates knows the cat being on the mat". So it would be natural to suppose that
consideration of the term-construction would yield everything of importance; the only
real difference between "Socrates knows Tabby" and "Socrates knows that Tabby is
lying on the mat" would be between Tabby, a 'simple' object, and Tabby lying on the
mat, a 'complex' one.
See also Hintikka [1971].
13. McDowell is bothered by Plato's concentration on the term-construction right from the
beginning: see McDowell [1973] 115-116. He apparently thinks a failure to "achieve
clarity" (116) about the distinction between the two constructions is a fundamental
philosophical failing. It is not clear to me why.
Ryle [1939] (136-141 of rpr in Allen [1965]) suggested that Plato in the later dialogues
was struggling toward a recognition of the fact ' 'that knowledge requires for its expression
not just a name but a sentence or statement' ' , and seems to have thought that the refutation
of the identification of knowledge and perception was a step in this direction (see 136
in Allen [1965], and the summary of the subsequent dispute over this in Lafrance [1981]
215-225 for further references). I am inclined to doubt this.
14. Or, for that matter, 'is aware'.
15. Viz., they are verbs or verb phrases VP such that you cannot with a straight face say
"Socrates VPs that p" if you do not think that it is true that p. If we were considering
the term-construction, the oddity would be that of including the verbs in the frame,
"Socrates
The paradigm is followed by 'smell', 'taste', and one

have either to make the assumption that when the cat is
special odor, or to replace 'that the cat is on the mať wit
it'; this replacement will then do for 'taste' as well. F
modal: "he can feel that this has wool in it, but it hasn't
claim to veridicality. "He feels that there is too much wo
it would be meant in the non- veridical sense (in this sen
the cloth to feel that there is too much wool in it). 'H
paradigm without changing the construction: "Socrates
but it isn't" shows the relevant oddity. If we made this
verbs, they would be in one respect closer to the Gre
English 'know' resists this construction.
16. In Greek, the verbs of perceiving favor a participial co
this is the mark of veridicality: see Kühner-Gerth [1898
482), Cf. esp. the behavior of our leading verbs: 717vû>
infinitive, 'decide', 'judge'), ato-0ávo(xai (w. participle,
in Plato, cf. Phdr. 25c5), (Jxxivofiai (w. participle, 'pla
and the 'exception that proves the rule' in Phlb. 22e2. An
481cl, is emended by Dodds, following Madvig: see D
Liddell-Scott s.v. <t>x||xC II a.
17. It remains important from here on: see Sprute [1962]
18. Cornford [1935] 32 translates ou|i€uôé<5 "infallible", and
31. This seems to me too strong.
19. It is tempting to follow McDowell [1973] trs. ad loc.,
were knowledge". He is, I think, right about the sense
121 with the above, and with pp. 68-69 below. (So a
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our perceptions on this theory are infallible they may be given the name of knowledge".)
The alternative is to make "perception is falsehood-free" a consequence of (T) and the
veridicality of knowledge: so, I think, Campbell [1883] 39 (Campbell [1861] 35), Corn-
ford [1935] 32, and Diès [1924] 171 (in the translation; but cf. the 'Notice', 130f.,
which waffles). F.C. White [1972] thinks the latter interpretation the only possible one
given the words "o><; etticttti (jlt| oucra" and so would erase them. But the bare
"€itlo"tt1|xt| oura" would not have to be taken as a premise for the conclusion that
perception is falsehood-free, and the addition of "¿os" does nothing to fix the relation
any better. The translation above is an attempt to be as foggy as the Greek.
20. Next section, pp. 68-69 and n. 31.
21. Deleting Burnet's quotation marks.
22. But see 167c, where the state is the measure of things just and unjust. Presumably a
state's taking slavery to be just is there thought of as a matter of the attitudes of its
individual citizens: cf., e.g., R iv. 435e-436a.
23. Without leaning too heavily on the idea. We are not, afterall, utterly incorrigible about
such things: perhaps what he took for chilliness was really tension, or the effect of a
drug, and so on. Cf. Austin's "Other Minds", in Austin [1961] 58ff. = [1970] 90ff.
for a subtler point.
24. Cornford [1935] 33-36 thinks that Plato here departs from the historical Protagoras,
whose view, he supposes, was that the wind is both cold and not cold (see nn. 38, 39,
44, 57 below). Kenny [1967] 186 apparently misremembered this, and ascribed this
view to the Protagoras that Socrates is creating.
25. Another argument for this appears in Aristotle, Metaphysics T 5. 1009a38-bll and in
Sextus Empiricus, HP i 88 (cf. Kenny [1967]): the wind can't be both hot and cold,
and the same thing can't be both bright and dark, but there is no reason, in the abstract,
to prefer one over the other, so both have to go. On the possibility (it is only that) that
Protagoras used this argument, see DeLacey [1958] 59-60 = rpr [1971] 594 w. nn. p.
604. It is not a very good argument. Of course, in the abstract there is no choosing
between hot and cold, or bright and dark. But in the concrete there very often is: one
or the other of two perceivers may be ill or otherwise off, while the other has a clear
head and a clear view. As we shall see, Socrates' Protagoras is not unaware of this: he
will claim that we just cannot tell the difference.
26. This has already been a premise for Melissus of Samos: if there really were such things
as earth, water, air, and fire, "each would have been just as it seemed. For nothing is
stronger than true being." (otXX' t)v otó v irep èSÓKei 'eKotcrrov toioûtov. toô yàp
èóvroç vou KpetoTFov oòôév. DK 30B8.5, Diels/Kranz [1960] ii 275.4-6).
Burnyeat [1977] 74 n. 1 refers to indications that the same premise operates in
Democritus; this would be no surprise given the normal view of the relation between
the atomists and Melissus (see, e.g., Kirk, Raven, & Schofield [1983] 401 et passim ).
27. On this passage, see Glidden [1975] 1 14-1 18. But I am unable to follow the employment
of 'referential opacity' in Glidden's reconstruction of the argument (see pp. 117-118).
28. On <1)avTaCTÍa see Scholar [1971] 266 (but with a'ia0Tļcris taken differently).
29. McDowell [1973] (110 ad 152c2) follows Badham in reading y' instead of yap, and
accordingly translates 'so' instead of 'for' (cf. p. 120 as well). But '7ap' is a highly
fallible indicator of argumentative order, as is the English 'for'.
30. More literally, "for it is always of the being that's mine" (McDowell) but this must
not be taken to imply that there is a single being that is mine from one occasion to the
next.
31. An argument which seems to impress me more than it does McDowell: he (McDowell
[1973] 121) thinks (I guess) that even if (P) were right, there would still be room for
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Protagorized perception to be unreliable, and hence not knowledge; I cannot see what
unreliability might be if there is no room for error. (He also takes the notion of perception
to be narrower than I do, and sees room for a difference there: see below, n. 32.) See
also Gosling [1973] 145-146, followed by Waterfield [1987] 145-146, where the problem
is supposed to be that although there is no room for unreliability with 'the wind feels
cold to me', when it comes to 'cold is the correct description of how the wind feels to
me', things could go wrong. I do not see the latter sentence playing any role here at all.
(This latter train of thought I suspect is traceable to Austin: see the reference in n. 23
above.)
Cornford sees some sort of a distinction between perception's being 'infallible' (his
translation, where I have 'falsehood-free') and its being of what is (Cornford [1935] 32:
cf. pp. 32-33); he is followed by White [1972]. This distinction I miss, unless it is that
between (in my terminology) incorrigibility and veridicality. But then, these authors take
it that knowledge, in fact, has both features. I do not believe it has incorrigibility (but
cf., to the contrary, Prichard [1950] 86).
32. Apart from the plain fact that sense-perception is taken as a paradigm in all that follows
(which comes in for discussion below), only 152c 1-2 ("so seeming and perception are
the same in cases of hot things and all things like that") argues for a restriction of the
thesis to sense-perception. Cornford [1935] 32-33 takes the passage that way and so,
more guardedly, does McDowell [1973] 119-120. But "things like that" is just as open-
ended as "sometimes" (b2) and "at such times" (b5) (these three passages are quoted
above: b2 and b5 on p. 65, and cl-2 on p. 68). I find myself in agreement with Waterfield
[1987] 144 here.
Again, see Frede [1987].
33. See Cornford [1935] 65, 69; McDowell [1973] 164; Rowe et al. [1982].
34. Cf. n. 22 above.
35. Capelle [1960] 267 makes a great deal turn on this passage, but, as we have seen, the
point is built into the argument itself.
36. Burnyeat [1976b] 45-46, [1976c] 172 characterizes Protagoras' position in the Theaetetus
as 'relativism' rather than 'subjectivism', but the difference is only verbal: relativism,
as he uses the term, is the doctrine that truth is relative to the individual, where sub-
jectivism would be the doctrine that what is true simpliciter is only what each individual
believes. The latter view plays no part in my discussion; the former is what I am calling
'subjectivism' .
37. 'à 'òa> (juxCTX'p: Jowett [1953] iii 265 'that which he feels'; Diès [1924] 194: 'l'impression
actuelle'; Cornford [1935] 71 'what one experiences'; McDowell [1973] 40 'what one's
experiencing'; Klein [1977] 101 'what one feels'; Benardete [1984] 1.33 'whatever one
experiences'.
The claim Protagoras here makes is repeated in 1978b (iráaxei 178b6). Apart from
these two occurrences, irdaxeiv occurs, by my count, 28 times in this dialogue (148e8,
151a5, 154b5 [bis], 155b7, 156a7, 157a5, 159a3, 5, 7, 11, c9, dl, 2, 165d2, 166b3
[bis], 4, 174b5, 176d8, 181c5, 182a6 [bis], b4, 184a7„ 191a2, 193dl, 196b9). Often
the natural (but never required) translation is 'experience', (148e8, 151a5, 166b3 [bis],
4) but the word figures in the theory of perception, where it must mean 'undergo' or
'be acted on' (and is standardly so translated: 154b5 [bis], 156a7, 157a5, 159a3, 5, 7,
11, c9, dl, 2, 182a6 [bis], b4), and even outside the theory, 'undergo' is more often
the more natural (and, again, the translations standardly follow suit: 155b7, 165d2,
174b5, 176d8, 181c5, 184a7, 191a2, 193dl, 196b9).
A false belief is called a iraöo«; in 187d3; Cornford [1935], McDowell [1973], and
Waterfield [1987] translate 'experience', which is strange English.
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Outside the present context, cf., eg., the occurrences of Vácrxeiv' in Ap. 17al,
Isocrates 15. 4 and 15. 97.
38. Unless we are prepared to give up the law of non-contradiction, in which case we could
allow that the wind was really both cold and not cold: see Cratylus 385e-386e, where
these two views are distinguished, the former ascribed to Protagoras, and the latter to
Euthydemus (see Dancy [1975] 68-69). Cornford [1935] 34 and Cherniss [1935] 369,
85 n. 359 both ascribe the latter view to Protagoras, ignoring the Cratylus passage and
relying on Sextus (HP i. 218). Both then take it that what happens subsequently in the
Theaetetus mangles the views of the historical Protagoras. My own inclination is just
the opposite: to rely on Plato (and Aristotle, Met. 0 3. 1047a4-7) and make Protagoras
a subjectivist (so Guthrie [1969] 184-86). Why Taylor dislikes that label (Taylor [1926],
4th ed. 1937 [rpr 1952 as '6th ed.'] 324) is unclear to me.
39. We have for Cornford, who takes it that the wind in itself is really out there, composed
of objective (and mutually contradictory: cf. n. 38) sense-qualities (Cornford [1935] 34-
36; so also Kerferd [1949] 20-21; see also Kerferd [1981] 85-93). This leaves him with
a difficulty, best seen by comparing these two quotations: "for him (viz. Protagoras)
both the sense-objects (hot and cold) exist independently of any percipient" (p. 35);
"Neither percipient nor sense-object can exist independently of the other" (p. 56). See
also nn. 44, 57 below.
The view that the wind is really out there has other defenders: e.g., Marc-Wogau
[1967] 14ff. and, most recently, Matthen [1985]. The alternative with which I shall be
inclining to agree is close to that in Burnyeat [1976a] 30-33, 36-37.
40. One of the merits of Dercsényi [1935] is the central position it gives to the Juncture
Claim (see pp. 404-410).
41. Some translations only record this refusal in d6: e.g., that of Fowler [1921] 43 and
Benardete [1984] 1.15; see Campbell [1883] 40 (not in [1861]), who prefers to translate
d3-4 "nor can you call anything rightly by any name", and comments on the translation
"nor can you rightly call it anything or any kind of thing" (as above):
. . . this is less probable, and is certainly not required by what follows.
But he seems to ignore d6. The same seems to be true of Matthen [1985] 43.
42. In fact, I think, the categories are those sometimes referred to as "the Old Academic
Categories" (e.g., Dillon [1977] 133), a scheme defended by Xenocrates against what
he saw as the superfluous elaboration of Aristotle's system of categories (Simplicius,
Cat. 63.21-24 = Heinze fir. 12), ascribed by Hermodorus to Plato himself (Simplicius,
Phys. 248.2-3), and putting in an appearance in Sophist 255cl2-13. But this would take
argument, and is not essential to the point here.
43. So explained by McDowell [1973], who refers to 439d-440a, 423c-424b for parallels.
44. But here Cornford sees Plato as "going beyond Protagoras" (Cornford [1935] 39, cf.
40 and n. 3 pp. 39-40).
45. Campbell [1861], [1883] (ad loc.), Diès [1924], Cornford [1935], McDowell [1973],
and Waterfield [1987] all take this phrase with 'mixture' (e.g., McDowell: "mixture
with one another"), but it seems to me ambiguously placed, as above.
46. And so I cannot concur with comments such as Lafrance [1981] 229: "En un mot,
l'identification de l'être et de l'apparaître conduit en droite ligne à l'affirmation d'un
devenir perpétuel . . . nous sommes entraînés inévitablement de l'identification de l'être
à l'apparaître à l'identification de l'être au devenir perpétuel." Waterfield [1987] 151
notes the contradiction.
47. On it, see Nakhnikian [1955/56] (esp. part I, 129-148), [1956-57]. But some of what
Nakhnikian says is determined by material outside the Theaetetus and I am avoiding
that; this may have to do with the point of disagreement mentioned in n. 57 below.
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More recent treatments can be found in Burnyeat [1979] 76-88, Modrak [1981].
48. This is, in fact, the first mention of these qualities in the context of the theory. See
Campbell [1861] 57, [1883] 63-64, McDowell [1973] 145, Waterfield [1987] 41 n. 2.
49. Cf. Campbell [1861] 32, [1883] 35-36.
50. ' Perceptum ' is a translation of cdcr0T1TÓv at 156bl, b2, etc.
51. I have followed Hackforth [1957] 130 ad 154b3-5 in translating this passage, as does
McDowell [1973] (in the translation). Contrast Cornford [1935] 40-41, cited by Hack-
forth): "when a different thing came into contact with it or were somehow modified",
which Hackforth found "unmeaning"; so do I. But Plato js not, I think, at his most
careful in this passage (Hackforth: "The Greek is indeed clumsy . . .").
52. Interpreting 154b6 vvv as does Cornford [1935] 41 n. 1.
53. The way Socrates actually puts it, it is a question of the observer being brightly colored
and then darkly colored. Burnyeat [1979] 80-85 makes a good deal of this; I am inclined
to think that Socrates is simply speaking imprecisely. In any case, the point has to be
that the patient perceives a bright color in s, and a dark one in s2: see the more detailed
statement of the matter in 156a-c, de. McDowell [1973] 132 tries to wrest this sense
directly from the Greek, but I am not convinced; see Burnyeat [1979] 80.
54. Cornford [1935] admits to having trouble here (p 41.); see also Bluck [1961].
55. This is not quite right, if Dercsényi [1935] 409 is. But even on his account, what would
need answering is the question how Protagoras' view is to be argued for so as to remove
the air of paradox from the puzzles of size and number (see his pp. 409-410).
Cf. also Sayre [1969] 69, 72-73 on the relation between the puzzles and the subsequent
theory of perception. The position I develop below, despite various disagreements over
detail, seems to be close to Sayre' s . See also Bluck [1961] 8-9, McDowell [1973] 133-
137, Waterfield [1987] 152.
56. Socrates first has Protagoras ask (c8-9):
Theaetetus, is there any way of coming-to-be bigger or more except by being

increased?
'Í1 0€otLTTļT€, 'éa6' 'Ó7to)s ti fieîÇov Tļ TrXéov 7Í7V€toii aMcos 'ti ceb^T10év;)
We can see from the sequel (155c 1-4), quoted below) what would have happened had
Theaetetus fallen for this: Socrates would then have said, correctly, that the dice were
not increased between s, and s2, concluded that they have not come-to-be more, and
seen a paradox in the fact that they are more in s2, which they weren't in Si, without
having come-to-be more. But Theaetetus does not fall for this. So Socrates has to persuade
him to be less clever, and eventually gets him to concede the truth of the three 'apparitions'
we introduce immediately.
57. This is not explicit in the text, but it parallels the argument Socrates employs in connection
with the next paradox.
58. This is closer to the analysis in McDowell [1973] 133-134 than to that in Sayre [1969]
71. I have left out a difficulty: 155c2-3 ("for without coming-to-be it is not possible to
have come-to-be") seems to import a new premise. For Campbell [1861] 48 (= [1883]
53), this is an additional axiom to connect the aorist in Apparition I with the present of
Apparition II and the use of both in Apparition III. He remarks: "To us such refinements
are difficult, because needless" ("unnecessary" in Campbell [1861]). There is more to
be said than that, but not here.
59. Cf. Natorp [1921] 106, Dercsényi [1935] 407, Friedländer [1969] 158.
60. One might think it is only a matter of illustrating the nature of relations: it is just as
misleading, Protagoras might be telling us, to say 'the wind is cold' as it is to say 'the
dice are fewer'. Cornford [1935] 43-45 and Ross [1951] 101-102 read the passage along
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these lines. Runciman [1962] 17-18 objects, but does not provide a real alternative. If
this were correct, there would have been no need for a Heraclitean theory of perception
or even for Protagorean subjectivism to bail us out. Ross saw this: he says (Ross [1951]
102): "The theory throws no direct light on the problem he has been considering, but
he seems to be hinting that similarly tallness and smallness imply two things coming
into comparison with each other . . .".
61. We might allow saying that the dice and Socrates have changed, provided all we meant
was what Geach calls 'Cambridge change' (see esp. Geach [1979] 90-91). But then we
should have to say that the Apparitions (particularly I) are false for Cambridge change.
62. But see n. 37 above for occurrences of irácrxciv.
63. Taking the Kai in 156c9 as epexegetic (156c8-d2):
Such (a change) as is slow holds its change in the same place, relative to the
ones (viz., changes) near it, and so it is that it generates: but the generated
ones are quicker.
baov
ow ßpa&u, cv tú onhtò Kal irpòç ià irXTio-uiÇovTa ttjv

d KivTļaiv 'útx€1 Ka^ oÚTW õf| êvvç Tà Ôè 7€vvcí)jjL€va o&tw 0<xttü)
€OTÍV.
There is no conflict between this and the admission in 18 le that everything is in spatial
motion (pace Nakhnikian [1955/56] 135) nor are there different kinds of change talked
about here (pace McDowell [1973] 138). The slow changes are moving (slowly) in
space, but it is no part of their generating the quick ones that they are: a pair of sluggish
motions moving in parallel might as well be standing still; they would still be firing
quicker ones at each other.
64. This reference seems to me curiously specific. Campbell [1861] 55 ([1883] 61) mentions
the use of ira^Cws vorpm at Republic v 479c4.
65. Taking 157a3-4 as does Hackforth [1957] 131 ad loc.; so also McDowell [1973].
66. As Dercsényi [1935] 410 points out. The point is often missed: e.g., by Sayre [1969]
76.
67. Many interpreters suppose this: e.g., Cornford [1935] 50: "... my pen and this paper
have some difference of property when not perceived, which would explain why, when
I do see them, the pen looks black, the paper white"; Nakhnikian [1955/56] 141: "Things
are physical objects before they become agents and patients"; Waterfield [1987] 40 n.
1: "The relativism of object and eye includes the possibility that an eye could be looked
at by someone else (i.e. be the active object) or do the looking (i.e. be the passive
half)". This is also required by Matthen' s interpretation, although he does not deal with
this passage (Matthen [1985] 35 et passim).
68. Hackforth [1957] 131 ad 157b4 emends otrrc tou oDt' kjxw to otrre to obôajxoô, so that
Socrates excludes the singular definite article instead of 'its' and 'my', but this seems
to me uncalled for.
69. Wittgenstein [1921] 6.54. The situation is also like what Derrida describes as writing
'under erasure' Ç&ous rature ): see Spivak, 'Preface' to Derrida [1976] xiv and Derrida
[1976] 23, 60-61. I am indebted to Susan Rouse for pointing this out to me, and to
Eugene F. Kaelin for tracking down references.
70. 157al, 3, 4, 5, and 8: these are more or less visible in the translations above and on p.
84.
71. Assuming that 'touto' is no better than 'tóÔ€' (cf. 202a4, 205c8).
72. So Burnet [1914] 240-241, to which Cornford [1935] 48 n. 1 refers, but which he can
hardly be taking very seriously (see n. 67 above).
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73. This is better than taking Protagoras to be rejecting the Apparitions themselves, as do
Bonitz [1886] 50-51 and Sayre [1969] 71-72. Sayre thinks that (ld)-(3d) and (ls)-(3s)
are instances of 'appearing', and so, for Protagoras, unassailable. But this is not explicit
in the text. Indeed, the use of 'apparitions' might suggest that these are the unassailable
appearings (cf. McDowell [1973] 133). In any case, Socrates announced in 154b6-8 that
he would show us non-Protagoreans being forced to say absurd things, and immediately
introduces the d-claims as things we are forced to say (see 154c4-5), and a little later
makes the Apparitions come into conflict "whenever we say those things about the dice,
or when we speak of me as of this size ..." (155b5-6).
74. This involves taking 'added to' and 'subtracted from' in Apparition II to mean just
'getting bigger' and 'getting smaller': cf. 'increased' in the admission Theaetetus refused
to make, and cf. McDowell's generalized version of the Apparitions (McDowell [1973]
135-36), the second of which is "If something is / and does not itself change, then it
(still) is/'. My view above seems to be the second of McDowell's options (p. 133); I
do not see, though, why on this view "we have to suppose that he [Plato] takes the
contradictions to be genuine" (p. 136).
75. Socrates does not in fact use the term Kpi/rtļpiov, important in Hellenistic epistemology,
until 178b6, cl, but see the occurrence of Kpirris in 160c8. (There are only two other
occurrences of Kpiriļpiov in Plato: Republic ix 582a6 and Laws vi 767b5; the former
of these also anticipates the Hellenistic usage.)
76. Cornford [1935] 52 n.l says it is "a sort of preliminary answer"; McDowell [1973]
146-148 treats it as a 'first answer', but does not say how it is related to the sequel.
77. The argument it might suggest is that mentioned in n. 25 above, but that argument is
not contained in this text.
78. So Campbell [1861] 61, [1883] 68 says
This is one of many examples of the imperfect state of logic, which puts
Socrates' respondent at his mercy.
79. For a different strategy, see Archer-Hind [1886]; the comments on Burnyeat [1976a]
30-31 suggest that he would prefer this. According to this, all there is to the observer
on any particular occasion is the pair consisting of one percept and one perceptum. But
then it is hard to see what (PI) is claiming.
80. Construing 'áXXo as the object of aUrõavójxevos, with every translation I have seen
(and see Campbell [1861] 63, [1883] 71: alcrOavoiiai does occur with the accusative)
down to Waterfield [1987] 45; he construes oùôev <x''o as nominative, in effect giving
'so I shall never become anything else, perceiving in this way'. But the argument of
the sequel seems to me, as it did to Campbell, to require the former interpretation.
81. I.e., we need each other. Dercsényi [1935] 410-411 found this (in Apelt, followed by
Cornford [1935] 57 n. 2 and McDowell [1973] 155 [at (ii)]) unacceptable, but lapses
into rhetoric in explaining why.
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Theaetetus has a miscarriage at 146cd: asked 'what is knowledge?', he

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2. Theaetetus ' Definition

Let us confine (T) to the single formulation 'knowledge is perception';

2. 1 Perceiving and being aware

Encouraged by Socrates, Theaetetus had said (151el-3);

e Well, it seems to me that he who knows something perceives that which

e ôoKtí ow |xoi ò emoTctjievos ti aia0ctv€a0ai toôto

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I've never perceived anyone as wonderfully talented

oü&éva neo iļa00|XTļv otjtío 0av|xaoroì>s ei) īrecļruKOTa.

Plainly the emphasis here is not on sense-perception.

Socrates is the next to use it: in discussing midwives, he says to Theae-

to which Theaetetus responds, "No, I certainly didn't know that"(où

it seems to me that he who knows something is aware of that which he

Then (T) might have been read as:

A knows that S is P = df A is aware that S is P.

This is, I think, the sense of (T). And it is perfectly natu

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In Plato's discussions of knowledge, the verb 'know' is more often

So perception is always of what is, and falsehood-free,18 as being

The last phrase, "as being knowledge", is r

When Socrates equates (T) with what Protag

that man is the measure of all things: of thi

<|)Tļai 7<ip irov irávTcov xP^IM^tíov |¿€Tp

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(P*) Things are to each person as they seem to him.

There is going to be a little more to (P) than this.

3.1 The exclusion of objectivity

By way of expanding on (P*) Socrates says (152b2-3):

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Theaetetus defers to Protagoras,24 and Socrates asks (b9):

OÜKouv Kai cļ>aLV€Tai ovtío €KaTep(ļ);

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3.2 The paradox of false belief

ènei o'3 tí 7e <p€vôf| 8o£á£ovTá tís Tiva vorepov a'Tļ0rj eiroiTļae

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3.3 Perception Protagorized

SOC.: 'Seems', then, is perceiving?

c SOC.: So seeming28 and perception are the same in cases of hot

5 SOC.: So perception is always of what is, and falsehood-free, as

The wind seems to Socrates to be cold, but it isn't.

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SOC.: So my perception is true for me - for it is always of a being

3.4 Sense-perception as a paradigm case

The notion of perception, we have said, is not confined to sense-

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that perceptions do not come-into-being unique for each of us, or that,

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'Heracliteanism' is the claim, made in 152el, that:

4. 1 The Juncture Claim ; the contradiction

According to Socrates, when Protagoras uttered (P), "he said it as a

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But Socrates immediately reconstrues the Claim (152d5-el, over

d 5 . . . and so for everything, in that nothing is one (thing),