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SOC. As, for example, Hesiod, speaking of a wagon, says, a hundred pieces of wood in a wagon. Hes. WD 456 Now I could not name the pieces, nor, I fancy, could you; but if we were asked what a wagon is, we should be satisfied if we could say wheels, axle, body, rims, yoke.
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THEAET. Certainly.
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SOC. But he, perhaps, would think we were ridiculous, just as he would if, on being asked about your name, we should reply by telling the syllables, holding a right opinion and expressing correctly what we have to say, but should think we were grammarians and as such both possessed and were expressing as grammarians would the rational explanation of the name Theaetetus. He would say that it is impossible for anyone to give a rational explanation of anything with knowledge, until he gives a complete enumeration of the elements, combined with true opinion. That, I believe, is what was said before.
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THEAET. Yes, it was.
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SOC. So, too, he would say that we have right opinion about a wagon, but that he who can give an account of its essential nature in terms of those one hundred parts has by this addition added rational explanation to true opinion and has acquired technical knowledge of the essential nature of a wagon, in place of mere opinion, by describing the whole in terms of its elements.
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THEAET. Do you agree to that, Socrates?
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SOC. If you, my friend, agree to it and accept the view that orderly description in terms of its elements is a rational account of anything, but that description in terms of syllables or still larger units is irrational, tell me so, that we may examine the question.
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THEAET. Certainly I accept it.
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SOC. Do you accept it in the belief that anyone has knowledge of anything when he thinks that the same element is a part sometimes of one thing and sometimes of another or when he is of opinion that the same thing has as a part of it sometimes one thing and sometimes another?
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THEAET. Not at all, by Zeus.