Theaetetus: Definition of False Judgment - Essay Example

Theaetetus: Definition of False judgment. Abstract Theaetetus is a Socratic dialogue that ends inconclusively. Theaetetus is a look alike of Socrates, hence these dialogues can be considered as an inner dialogue of Socrates that ends without any definite answers. The dialogue begins with the question: What is knowledge? Theaetetus defines knowledge as true judgment. Then he goes on defining false judgment, through five puzzles. All puzzles are argumentatively rejected by Socrates. And the dialogue ends with out a definite answer. The Theaetetus is a Socratic dialogue that starts positively but ends indefinitely. The questions asked are positive but the answers reached are not definite. Francis Macdonald Corn ford’s (2000) quote of Theaetetus brings to light this nature of the dialogues: Socr.You are right, my friend. Now begin all over again………….Tell us once more what knowledge is. Theaet. Cannot say it is judgment as a whole, because there is false judgment; But perhaps true judgment is knowledge. You may take that as my answer. If as we go further, it turns out to be less convincing than it seems now, I will try to find another. (Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, PP 110). Theaetetus, while talking of the false judgment, is also mentioning about true judgment, which he says is the knowledge. He also opens out his options for alternate answers when they continue the dialogues. The lack of definiteness is what has made these Socratic dialogues interesting. The strange and wonderful thing is that Socrates and theaetetus, are look alike. Both are short, stout and snub-nosed. It is Theodorus of Cyrene who is bringing this young man who is similar in appearance to Socrates, to Socrates. Thus this dialogue can also be considered as an inner dialogue of Socrates, an inner philosophical conflict of ideas, which goes on indefinitely. The basic question of the dialogue is “what is knowledge?” Theaetetus proposes various definitions of knowledge: Knowledge as Arts and Sciences, Knowledge as perception. Socrates brings in here the two contradictory theories of Protogoras and Heracleitus to reject these definitions. The Protogorian concept of man being the measure of all things and the Heracleitus’s theory of every thing being in a flux are rejected by Socrates as half truths. While rejecting these theories Socrates is not proposing any alternatives. Thus we come to know more about what’s not knowledge than what is knowledge. It is through the answers to this question that they come to the issue of true and false judgments. And there are no precise answers there too. When his two early definitions of knowledge get rejected, Theaetetus puts forward the third definition, that the knowledge is judgment. This leads the dialogue into what is true and false judgments and how they occur. Misidentification, that is identifying something for another, is one cause for false judgment. This concept it self leads to a puzzle, because one will have to know something and the other before identifying. And if one knows both, there is little chance for misidentification. According to Timothy D.J.Chappell (2005) “To state this proposal is merely to state a puzzle: the puzzle which is basic to the rest of the discussion of false belief…….In exposition of this puzzle, Plato presents a dilemma that seems to show that they can’t occur” (Reading Plato’s Theaetetus—PP 158) The second puzzle about false judgment, is thinking or judging “what is not”, or “things that are not”. Some interpreters consider this puzzle as mere sophistry, because there cannot be a thing as “what is not”. Such a thing is a non entity. One can’t perceive or believe in a non entity. Thus again, it seems that false judgment is not possible. To quote Timothy D.J.Chappell (2005) again: “One such interpretation is defended e.g., by Burnyeat 1990:78, who suggest that the second puzzle can only work if we accept “the scandalous analogy between judging what is not and seeing or touching what is not there to be seen or touched.” (Ibid, PP 165). Now to the third puzzle, according to Timothy D.J.Chappell (2005), “literally translated, the third proposal about how to explain the possibility of false belief, says that false belief occurs “when someone exchanges (antallaxamenos) in his understanding one of the things that are with another of the things that are and says is.” (Ibid PP 166)This statement it self is very unclear. But it proposes a false judgment occurring due to inadvertency. At this point Socrates introduces the notion of memory. Memory conceived as a wax tablet (The forth puzzle) and memory conceived as an aviary (fifth puzzle). If mind is conceived as a wax block, memories are those images we have stamped on that wax block, the images that we have conceived or perceived. What ever remains in the wax block is what we know or remember. What ever that has disappeared from the wax block, we don’t remember or know. Here the false judgment occurs when we perceive something and match it to a wrong imprint in the wax block. Socrates rejects this model too, because it fails to explain the arithmetical errors or false arithmetical beliefs. The dialogue moves to the fifth puzzle, of mind as an aviary. Knowledge can be divided into two, as the knowledge one has or passive, potential knowledge and knowledge that one uses, the active or actual knowledge. Socrates imagines the mind as an aviary full of different types of birds. The birds are pieces of knowledge. They are there flying around in your mind. If one wants to pass over this knowledge to some one, one will have to enter the aviary and catch hold of the right bird. Learning is stocking the aviary. Catching a particular bird is remembering a particular point one has learned. But when one wants to catch a pigeon, one may catch a dove instead. Here false judgment occurs. The potential knowledge is wrongly applied as the actual knowledge. Socrates rejects this definition also because it is trying to define false judgment as interchangeable pieces of passive and active knowledge. The next part of the dialogue is Theaetetus’s attempt to define knowledge as True Judgment with Logos (account). This definition also fails. Thus the dialogue ends inconclusively.Theaetetus tries to explain false judgment, but fails to reach a definite definition of it. Because he fails to answer the question: What is knowledge? ======================================= Works cited: 1) Corn ford Macdonald Francis, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge: The Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato (International Library of Philosophy), Published by Routledge, 1st Edition, November 30 2000. 2) .Chappell Timothy D.J, Reading Plato’s Theaetetus, Hackett Publishing Company (March 31, 2005) Meno’s Paradox And Socrates’ Theory Of Recollection. Abstract Meno’s Paradox is not fully serious according to many of the interpreters. It is posed with less-than-noble motif too. Thus Socrates answers only the paradox of Knowledge and ignores the paradox of enquiry. He answers this paradox of knowledge with his theory of recollections, which is not good for all types of knowledge. As this theory applies well for priori knowledge like Mathematics, Socrates tries to prove it with a geometrical experiment. Though he doesn’t give Menno a definite solution for his paradox, he advises Menno not to keep away from enquiring what one doesn’t know. Plato doesn’t seem to have definite solution to Meno’s paradox of enquiry. The dialogue between Meno and Socrates starts not with the issues of enquiry or knowledge. The dialogue starts with the virtue or arête which means virtues in general and not any particular virtue. Whether it can be taught, or whether it is a common thing among all human beings, or whether it is a quality of a few? .In the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates makes it clear that he is clueless about virtue. Meno responds by saying that it is different for different people. It is different depending on the age and even gender. Socrates rejects all these ideas of Meno. Meno finally admits that he, like Socrates is not very sure of what virtue is. And here begins the paradox. How can one learn something which one doesn’t know? A man cannot enquire either about what he knows or about what he doesn’t know. He cannot enquire what he knows because he knows it; He cannot enquire what he doesn’t know because he doesn’t know what to enquire. Many interpreters express doubt about the seriousness of the paradox itself. To quote Roslyn Weiss (2001) “ But apart from the matter of what less-than-noble motives Meno might have in posing the paradox , There are questions of whether the paradox itself has philosophical merit and whether Socrates in the Meno thinks it does.” (Virtue in the Cave, PP54).The paradox is a challenge posed by Meno to Socrates and has two parts. --- Paradox of enquiry and paradox of knowing. “The paradox of enquiry rests, it seems on a mere verbal quibble. It is this paradox, therefore, that Socrates calls, aptly, eristic. It has no philosophical bite.” (Ibid, PP 54). Thus Socrates ignores this part of the paradox and answers only the second part of the paradox, that of Knowing, according to one section of interpreters. Two episodes follow this; Socrates’ theory of recollection and the episode with the slave boy .There are difference of opinion among interpreters whether which of these episodes is the answer or solution to Meno’s paradox. According to Jane Mary Day (1994 ), “ In identifying the episode with the slave , rather than the theory of recollection , as Plato’s primary answer to Meno, Nehamas disagrees with White , who claims that Plato’s primary answer to Meno is the theory of recollection while the episode with the slave is there to support the theory .” (Plato’s Meno in Focus, PP 26). The theory of recollection which Socrates proposes goes like this. The theory rests on a fundamental belief that the soul is immortal. It is not only immortal but repetitive; it is born again and again. Thus it had gone through tremendous amount of experiences through so many re-births. All these experiences remain stored in the soul, so that when we learn, we just recollect these stored pieces of knowledge. Enquiring and learning are wholly a process of recollection, according to this theory of Socrates. Some interpreters contest this theory arguing that the Socratic theory cannot hold good with respect to all sorts of knowledge .The knowledge is usually divided into two—priori knowledge and the posteriori knowledge. The priori knowledge never needs references to experiences. Posteriori knowledge needs always the references with experiences. The theory of recollection is more valid to the priory knowledge, that’s knowledge derived by reason like mathematics, which is a priori science. May be this was the reason why Socrates posed mathematical problem to the slave boy to prove his theory. Socrates picks up a slave boy from Meno’s entourage and gives him a geometrical question for answering. He draws geometric figure of a square on the ground. But the boy fails to find twice the area of a square, when asked to find it. By drawing a second square figure on the diagonal Socrates demonstrates that the boy is now able to find double the area of the square. This, Socrates argues, is the knowledge recollected by the boy, “spontaneously recovered” knowledge of his past life. Meno nodes his head and accepts Socrates’ theory of recollection. Finally Socrates advises Meno, not to keep away from enquiry on what we don’t know. Gareth B. Matthews (2004) quotes Socrates thus: I shouldn’t like to take my oath on the whole story., but one thing I am ready to fight for as long as I can, in word and act ---that is, that we shall be better, braver and more active men, if we believe it right to look for what we don’t know than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don’t know we can never discover {86bc.Grube trans.} (Socratic Perplexity and Nature of Philosophy, PP 64) But Socrates fails to give Meno a definite solution to his paradox. Like most of Socratic dialogues this one also ends up open without definite solutions. That’s the beauty of this great Socratic works of Plato. ======================== Works Cited: 1) Weiss Roslyn , Virtue in the Cave, Moral Enquiry in Plato’s Meno, Oxford University Press, USA (may ,2001) 2) Day Mary Jane, Plato’s Meno in Focus, Routledge Philosophers in Focus Series, Routledge, 1st Edition, January 27, 1994) 3) Matthews Gareth B, Socratic Perplexity and Nature of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, USA ( January 1, 2004 ) Read More