Thesauros Literature Philosophy Θεαίτητος

Θεαίτητος

Θεαίτητος Plato
151 THEAET. Well then, Socrates, since you are so urgent it would be disgraceful for anyone not to exert himself in every way to say what he can. I think, then, that he who knows anything perceives that which he knows, and, as it appears at present, knowledge is nothing else than perception.
151 SOC. Good! Excellent, my boy! That is the way one ought to speak out. But come now, let us examine your utterance together, and see whether it is a real offspring or a mere wind-egg. Perception, you say, is knowledge?
151 THEAET. Yes.
152 SOC. And, indeed, if I may venture to say so, it is not a bad description of knowledge that you have given, but one which Protagoras also used to give. Only, he has said the same thing in a different way. For he says somewhere that man is the measure of all things, of the existence of the things that are and the non-existence of the things that are not. You have read that, I suppose?
152 THEAET. Yes, I have read it often.
152 SOC. Well, is not this about what he means, that individual things are for me such as they appear to me, and for you in turn such as they appear to you —you and I being man?
152 THEAET. Yes, that is what he says.
152 SOC. It is likely that a wise man is not talking nonsense; so let us follow after him. Is it not true that sometimes, when the same wind blows, one of us feels cold, and the other does not? or one feels slightly and the other exceedingly cold?
152 THEAET. Certainly.
152 SOC. Then in that case, shall we say that the wind is in itself cold or not cold or shall we accept Protagoras’s saying that it is cold for him who feels cold and not for him who does not?
152 THEAET. Apparently we shall accept that.
152 SOC. Then it also seems cold, or not, to each of the two?
152 THEAET. Yes.
152 SOC. But seems denotes perceiving?
152 THEAET. It does.
152 SOC. Then seeming and perception are the same thing in matters of warmth and everything of that sort. For as each person perceives things, such they are to each person.
152 THEAET. Apparently.

nav.navigate

nav.identity

common.settings

common.language
TR EN
common.theme