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THEAET. Nothing else.
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SOC. And when you say carpentry? Do you mean anything else than the art of making wooden furnishings?
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THEAET. Nothing else by that, either.
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SOC. Then in both cases you define that to which each form of knowledge belongs?
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THEAET. Yes.
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SOC. But the question, Theaetetus, was not to what knowledge belongs, nor how many the forms of knowledge are; for we did not wish to number them, but to find out what knowledge itself really is. Or is there nothing in what I say?
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THEAET. Nay, you are quite right.
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SOC. Take this example. If anyone should ask us about some common everyday thing, for instance, what clay is, and we should reply that it is the potters’ clay and the oven makers’ clay and the brickmakers’ clay, should we not be ridiculous?
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THEAET. Perhaps.
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SOC. Yes in the first place for assuming that the questioner can understand from our answer what clay is, when we say clay, no matter whether we add the image-makers’ or any other craftsmen’s. Or does anyone, do you think, understand the name of anything when he does not know what the thing is?
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THEAET. By no means.
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SOC. Then he does not understand knowledge of shoes if he does not know knowledge.
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THEAET. No.
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SOC. Then he who is ignorant of knowledge does not understand cobblery or any other art.
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THEAET. That is true.
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SOC. Then it is a ridiculous answer to the question what is knowledge? when we give the name of some art; for we give in our answer something that knowledge belongs to, when that was not what we were asked.
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THEAET. So it seems.
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SOC. Secondly, when we might have given a short, everyday answer, we go an interminable distance round; for instance, in the question about clay, the everyday, simple thing would be to say clay is earth mixed with moisture without regard to whose clay it is.
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THEAET. It seems easy just now, Socrates, as you put it; but you are probably asking the kind of thing that came up among us lately when your namesake, Socrates here, and I were talking together.