Knowledge and belief in the republic V

In this short essay I will analyze a rather short passage in the Republic which, taken out of its immediate context, plays an important part in understanding Plato’s idea about the relation between knowledge and belief, and indirectly between this world and the world of Forms.

The passage is 476d-480a in the Republic, book V.  The context is that Plato tries to answer how feasible the already outlined ideal state is.  The answer is the famous: “Unless communities have philosophers as kings... there can be no end to political troubles, my dear Glaucon, or even to human troubles in general”(473c-e).  Philosopher means lover of knowledge (wisdom), so Plato is urged to define knowledge and, more particularly, how knowledge is distinct from what non-philo­sophers are left with, belief.

Outline of the section

Socrates and Glaucon agree on that there are two types of people: the first group are sight-lovers, who are not concerning themselves with anything but the variety of objects in this world.  Indeed, Socrates even puts forth that “their minds are constitutionally incapable of seeing and devoting themselves to beauty itself.” (476b) [What “constitutionally incapable” is intended to mean is an interesting question by itself, as one can ask whether they are by birth incapable or by wrongful destruction their nature to such a degree that there is no way by, i.e., their constitution has in effect changed.] The second group are the truth-lovers, who can contemplate the Forms themselves, e.g., experience beauty per se.  The love of the plurality of a Form in manifestation implies that the sight-lovers have as their object belief, whereas the philosophers contemplate the Forms and in so doing have knowledge as their object.

The main part of the argument is Plato’s attempt to distinguish knowledge from belief by introducing the theory of Forms.

u First we are presented with a line ranging from knowledge to ignorance;belief is situated halfway.  Whether the line is a continuous progression or knowledge, belief, and ignorance are discrete points will be discussed below. Knowledge is defined as what is; belief as what is and is not; and ignorance as what is not.

v Then Plato correlates the objects of sight-lovers with belief and those of philosophers with knowledge.  The reason is that the object of the sight-lover has a probability that it is or is not.  The philosopher has object the Form and the Form only is, by definition.  From the definitions in u, we get that the philosophers have knowledge, whereas sight-lovers have belief.

Given this concise outline, we will focus on the main concern in the passage: Plato’s undifferen­tiated notion of being

Interpretations of einai

If not on philosophical grounds, the very toughness of translating the Greek “is”, œsti, into English would justify several interpretations of this section.  There have emerged three main interpretive strands due to this difficulty. We will examine each of them in order, and then try to conclude which one seems most suitable for us understanding Plato primarily, and only secondarily the problem itself.

Existential use

In Plato’s Republic, Cross and Woozley argues that when Plato defines knowledge as what is (to onti), “is”, onti, is used as “be”. That is, they argue that Plato says that knowledge is what exists, what has “beingness”, whereas ignorance does not exist at all.  From this reading, we get that belief has as its object both what exists inbetween, i.e., was is “semi-real”.  So knowledge is dependent upon the existence of the object. (cf Theaetetus 188c-)

This existential use is hard to sustain.  It can be argued that it does not make sense to talk about degrees of existence.  Assume that there is only one object of belief.  Then, by definition from u, this object both exists and does not exist.  Such an outcome is absurd! (cf Theaetetus 188a, 189a)  However, this harsh criticism of Annas is rather easily amended by substituting degrees of existence with degrees of being.  This is what Cross and Woozley in effect do when they argue that the object of knowledge is something real, whereas the object of belief is less real.  It would be absurd to propose that the object of belief is unreal, as it would be nothing.

The argument for degrees of beingness can be further explored.  View Plato as a realist with reality being non-physical, non-mental but intelligible (Forms).  With the distinction in the Divided Line (509d-513e) we can divide doxa(belief) up into pistis (opinion) and eikasia(conjecture).  Day-dreams and other thoughts which are triggered off by thoughts themselves belong to eikasia.  In contrast, the objects we perceive, through the sense-organs, have a given-ness, a being not dependent upon us perceiving them; they belong to pistis.  Moving up the Line, we get at more and more real objects; they possess a higher degree of being in virtue of  being less and less conditioned.   Complete being is the nature of the Forms; therefore, the more being an object possesses the more real it is.  For example, mathematical terms being without temporal dimensions are more real than the particulars which we can count using mathematics.  Why are the particulars less real?  Plato’s main criterion for knowledge is that it is infallible; thus, the object of knowledge must be unchanging.  The fewer dimensions of change an object is subject to, the less prone it is to change.  So, particulars being conditioned by time, space, and cause are more in a state of flux, i.e., less real.  This does not imply, as Annas suggests, that they do not exist.  Without necessarily having to introduce the Theory of Forms in book V, Plato nevertheless implies them in the existential reading: the theory of knowledge here developed not only influences but provides the basis for book VI and VII.  That is, Plato’s epistemology structures his metaphysics.

Veridical use

I.

According to the veridical reading, Plato distinguishes knowledge and belief not by their objects but by the degree of truth that the cognition entails.  To allow knowledge and belief to be different faculties but still have the same objects, Crombie argues that the object of a faculty is an internal accusative.  That is, two faculties can have the same object but still have different effects because “sight and only sight sees and nothing but sights, that smell and only smell smells smells and nothing but smells.”[i]  This implies that it is not the objects of the faculties that are different but the mental state that apprehends the objects.  Therefore, a mental state which is only F, unqualifiedly, that mental state is knowledge.  In this interpretation, beliefs are somewhere in a continuum between the two extremes of ignorance, agnoia, and knowledge, episteme. (479d)

This interpretation is supported by Gail Fine when she argues that epi can be applied to contents (=internal accusatives) as well as objects.  Fine says that knowledge always has content and content is always true; therefore, knowledge implies necessarily truth.  Thus, knowledge is defined by the total truth implication of its contents.

II.

Knowledge needs a perfect account, i.e., an account  in terms of Forms.  Once this account is attained, there is a possibility of knowledge of particulars.  That is, knowledge can only be attained at a formal, general, level but this does not necessarily imply that it cannot be applied to objects whose ontological status hinders them from being objects of knowledge.  It seems to me that it is in this way that belief attains the possibility of truth. [but wouldn’t attain existence thereby]

From this, Crombie argues that it is the mental state, the cognitive state, that  we bring to the per­ception of the object that determines the truth content.  The ontological status of the object is not what is crucial, i.e., the degrees of existence à la Cross and Woozley.  The important point is which faculty, dunameis, is acting -- that of knowledge or that of belief. [Both Crombie and Fine argue that even though belonging to different faculties, knowledge and belief works on the same objects.]

This also allows Fine to argue that  restricted to the sensibles, as are the sightlovers, one can’t attain more than belief because knowledge needs and account in terms of Forms. But the content of this account need not be restricted to Forms.

The veridical reading lends good support to why Plato wanted to crown philosophers as heads of states.  Their refusal to be right on average,  i.e., inductively, and instead being right by their knowledge made them having “perfect knowledge” as opposed to “empirical knowledge”.  Given Plato’s emphasis on the need to apply philosophy by living it, i.e. philosophical discourse is not enough, we can see that the philosophers practical knowledge did not preclude them from empirical knowledge.  On the other hand, and most importantly, the non-philosophers are confined to belief only.  This is what makes the philosopher rex superium.

Predicative use

I.

When Plato states that knowledge is infallible it excludes even the possibility of being wrong, i.e., being actually right is not strong enough a condition.  The object of knowledge has to be poten­tially and actually unqualified.  This happens only if F is fully F.  Indirectly, this necessitates belief to be both F and not-F.  If belief is only F, then it is an object of knowledge, as it is cannot turn out to be not-F. So for belief to exist as differentiated from knowledge, ignorance has to be implied. That is, ignorance has an existence by virtue of knowledge.

Annas is arguing for the predicative standpoint when she says that belief carries opposite predi­cates, sharing both F and not-F.  This is a necessity with the sensibles, as they are not unambigu­ous; e.g., we say “real” friend, to qualify the object.  Vlastos defines Plato’s object of knowledge as being “cognitively dependable, undeceiving.”[ii]  The sightlovers are not mistaken about the existence of the sensible objects, but of their degree of reality.  The fallibility of the sense-particulars is due to them being conditioned by space, time, or cause (relation).  The Forms, on the other hand, are more real as they are not in any way conditioned but unqualifiedly, unconditionally is. Taking that the objects of knowledge as infallible one arrives at qualifications which are most descriptive of the Forms.  Therefore, defining knowledge as the upper limit of a progression from cognitively false to cognitively reliable, the Forms become the objects of knowledge.  This justifies Vlastos saying “Thus the degrees-of-reality doctrine is, in this respect, a lucid consequence of Plato’s epistemol­ogy.”[iii]

Practical example:  When in love, you don’t doubt that you are in love.  Still the other person can question your love for him/her as long as it is not unconditional love for that person.  More formally, “real” love is love which is personified in the one person but not personalized to him/her; if it were personalized, it would be conditional upon that person and thus not be unconditional.  Therefore,  it is not “real” love before you can say “yes” to “Liebst du um Liebe, o ja -- mich liebe.  Liebe mich immer, dich lieb ich immerdar.”[iv]

II.

In contrast to the veridical reading, Annas arrives at a two world theory as knowledge and belief being different faculties, they cannot have same objects: I know only F if F is always and fully F.

This same dichotomy between the objects of knowledge and belief is found in Vlastos. Arguing, in effect, against Fine’s standpoint, Vlastos is implying a monist view of perception, “If we want this sort of knowledge [empirical knowledge], its only possible subject-matter would consists of those very things we observe by the senses.”  In the same passage, he on goes saying  “that Forms are “real” as judged by the criteria of the kind of knowledge which aspires to logical certainty, while only sensibles are “real” as judged by the very different criteria of empirically testable knowledge.”[v]  In other words, Vlastos does not see any way for knowledge proper to be applied to this world.  Using the phrase “empirical knowledge” merely enhances the value -state of belief, doxa.  Thus, Vlastos puts forth the idea that instead of going with a degrees-of -reality-theory, Plato just needs a kinds-of-reality theory, characterized by logical vs. empirical knowledge.

Conclusion

There is a crucial problem inherent in the arguments around the different meanings of einai.  This problem is that looking for the tree we might miss the forest.  Specifically, it is too unclear from this section what Plato himself means with knowledge being epi to onti.  What is needed is an understanding of Plato’s aim with book V and the Republic, in general.  This is, of course, beyond the scope of this essay!  An alternative route, and a definite shortcut, would be to argue with Hadot that Plato tried more to form than inform us:

“...it is not concerned with the exposition of a doctrine, but with guiding an interlocutor to a certain settled mental attitude: it is a combat, amicable but real... it is necessary to make oneself change one’s point of view, set of convictions.”[vi]

Apart from all three readings being commendable, I think that the existential reading is my preferred interpretation.  One reason is that I think that epistemological conclusions informed Plato’s metaphysics (notice how the Theaetetus deals with epistemology without metaphysics), a development which the existential reading quit readily admits.  The main reason, however, is not that the veridical use or the predicative use do not fit the section; they fit logically very well.  Rather, I prefer the existential reading because it appears to me more Platonic, more akin to what Plato himself would have delivered.

Bibliography

Annas, J. An Introduction to Plato’s Republic Oxford: OUP, 1981.

Crombie, I. M. An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.

Cross, R. C. and Woozley, A. D. Plato’s Republic London: Macmillan, 1964.

Fine, G. “Knowledge and Belief in Republic V” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (60), 1978.

Hadot, P Philosophy as a Way of Life Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

Plato The Republic (trans. Robin Waterfield) Oxford: OUP, 1993.

Vlastos, G. “Degrees of Reality in Plato” in R. Bambrough (ed.), New Essays on Plato and Aristotle          London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965.

White, N. Plato on Knowledge and Reality Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976.

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[i] Crombie (1967) p 57.

[ii] Vlastos (1965) p 7.

[iii] Vlastos (1965) p17.

[iv] Gustav Mahler’s first Rückert-lieder, “Liebst du um Schönheit”.

[v] Vlastos (1965) p 18.

[vi] Hadot (1995) p 20.

Is knowledge perception in the Theaetetus?

In this essay we will first outline Theaetetus’s and Socrates’s positions in the first part of Theaetetus, (151d-186e).  We will deliberately not outline the refutations at 160e-183c.  Then we will attempt to see Socrates’s reason for rejecting Theaetetus’ claim that “knowledge is perception”.  It will be clear that the reason for Socrates’s rejection is the ontological status of the sense-world compared to the qualifications for knowledge.  This result is shown by contrasting two possible interpretations; one argues that the work of psyche in relating accounts from different faculties points towards the Forms, whereas another sees the result of psyche as not pointing towards anything but its own working.

Outline of the section

1.         Theaetetus’s thesis

At the end of the famous midwifery scene, Socrates asks Theaetetus what knowledge is.  The first thesis of the argument is Theaetetus reply, “knowledge is simply perception” (151e).  This state­ment indicates either of two things:

1.      all knowing is perception

2.      all perception is knowledge

What is perception for Theaetetus?  Sensation is a kind of change.  It originates in the duality of the subject and the object.  Sensation occurs when the object acts upon the sense organ; the object’s motion is an active motion.  As this action happens, the faculty of sight undergoes a passive motion, changing in quality from sight in general to a seeing of a particular object. (156)  You do not see with sight per se but at the moment of perception the seeing eye comes into being; likewise, the seen object is not white­ness but becomes white.

2.         Two additional theories

2.1       Man is the measure of everything

To avoid Theaetetus's theory to be in conflict with experience, Plato brings in two further theories.  The first one is that of Protagoras and it is introduced to define what perception is.  Protagoras's doctrine, the homo mensura thesis, states that man is the measure of all there is.  All truth is strictly relative and private. (154)  Here, it lets Socrates say that “Perception, then, is always of what is, and unerring--as befits knowledge.” (152c).

Protagoras’ doctrine fits nicely in with the notion of two motions creating sense-perception: If each man decides what and how everything is, then if there is an outer physical object, it is necessary to have a meeting of the external object and the subjective, unique, percipient.  Plato describes this as the meeting of the two motions giving rise to sense-data.  In this way, one physical stone can give rise to as many private, uniquely perceived stones as there are percipients.  This implies solipsism, though not total subjectivism as there is actually something outside the private sphere on which the perceiver is co-dependent when perceiving.

Furthermore, there can be no illusions -- either private or collective.  To grant illusions no existence is the logical implication of asserting that everyone’s perception is unerring knowledge.  Protagoras has, thus, made Truth stand for relativized truth.  It is not possible to perceive the object, only one’s own perception of the object is to be known.  This is taken to the extreme at 158c-d where Socrates suggests that the examples of dreams, madness etc., show that “whatever a man thinks at any time is the truth for him.”.  Perhaps we can here see some clue to why Socrates is not willing to let knowledge equal perception.  Socrates says that the soul beliefs half the time that the dream-life is real and the other half that this world is real.  The way he phrases it, “the result is that for half our lives we assert the reality of the one set of object, and for half that of the other set.  And we make our assertions with equal conviction in both cases.”, seems to imply that we do not perceive reality but we, nevertheless, do assert it.  It is crucial that we do not get knowledge through perception but still can superimpose a belief upon sense-data that something is true.

2.2       The notion of flux

The very formulation of perception arrives at the necessity of an ever changing nature, i.e., close to Heraclitus: “We ought, rather, to speak according to nature and refer to things as ‘becoming’, ‘being produced’, passing away, ‘changing;” (157b)  The second theory is, thus, Heraclitus’s notion of constant flux.  It states that everything is in movement and change.  Crombie[i] points out that given that knowledge is perception, everything must be random -- in total flux -- as otherwise there will be something more than pure perception to know: constant relations between the objects and subjects.  Thus knowledge cannot be chaotic; we need to impose the more stringent condition of it being stochastic. [chaos is a non-linear but deterministic system whereas if stochastic we have a fully random, non-deterministic system.]

The premise of Theaetetus, the epistemology of Protagoras, and the ontology of Heraclitus imply that the only reality is motion.  “I am, relatively to you”, or as Plato has it “all things are coming into being relatively to something.” (157a).  Furthermore, most importantly, the linking together of the three notions implies that the object of knowledge is perception: knowledge is immediate as perception is unerring to my world at the very moment of perceiving. (160d)

Turning to the end-section of the first part of Theaetetus, we will investigate Socrates’ reasons for opposing that perception constitutes knowledge.

The insufficiency of Theaetetus’ claim for knowledge

From the outline above, it seems clear that Theaetetus argues that apprehension, sense-perception, gives knowledge.  Socrates, on the other hand, appears to state that knowledge requires compre­hension.  To look more closely at this, let us define apprehension as when seeing, you see what there is to see; that is, anachronistically,  phenomenalism.  The sense-organs do not change your perception.  Implicit here is a subject-object dichotomy.  Socrates’s reason for not believing that perception is knowledge was that failing to get at being, one fails also to get at truth; failing truth, one cannot know. (186c).  Apprehension does not get at being.  Only by comprehending the content of one’s apprehension, can one get at being.

By process of reasoning, we can comprehend the sense-perceptions.  What is this being of the object that we have to know in order to comprehend -- is it Being as a Form, or is it the inductive generality as arrived at by expertise?  To answer this, we will look closely at two contending readings of 184-86. Those are Cornford’s and Cooper’s.  Cornford introduces Forms, whereas Cooper argues that it is a misreading of the Greek to see Being where Socrates only mentions being.  In other words, where Cornford wants a transpersonal reality, the realm of Forms, to be the outcome of reason working on perception, Cooper is content with seeing reasoning as constructing order and logic within oneself.

First reading

The first reading introduces Forms into Theaetetus.  Socrates says that there is a single form to which all sense-data converge, “something with which, through the senses, as if they were instru­ments, we perceive all that is perceptible.” (184d)  This single form, psyche, makes it possible to relate two accounts of sense-perception which were perceived through different faculties; that is, to investigate the common features of two sense-impressions.  Cornford is inter­preting these common features as examples of Forms.  In other words,  Theaetetus’s list of common features (being-not being, likeness-unlikeness etc.) are not relations that the soul makes by reasoning and, furthermore, they are the only kind of objects of knowledge.

Firstly, Cornford concludes that perception is not the only possible instance of knowledge.  The common features are also a source of knowledge.

Secondly, Cornford makes use of the very end of part one where Socrates reaches the conclusion that perception is not knowledge. The argument goes:

            1. There are objects apart from sense-perceptions

            2. These are the only real objects of knowledge

            as         a) you get at the being of things by way of soul

            and      b) if you don’t get at being, you don’t get at truth

            and      c) if you don’t get at truth, you don’t get at knowledge

            thus      d) knowledge is not in perception but in the reasoning about them and the                             result of the reasoning is the discovery of the common features.

Thus, Cornford argues that the soul working on itself arrives at knowledge, without use of sense-perception.  The crucial distinction from the second reading is that Cornford wants the result of the soul’s reasoning, judgment, not just to be not a formalization and unitization of sense-data but the arrival at the level of Form.

Cornford argues that Plato still subscribes to Heraclitus: allowing Heraclitean flux you need something more than the sense organs, which are motions.  If the soul is to get knowledge, it has to access some­thing which is not conditioned by flux.  Thus, you need the soul to have access to the Forms, which are unchanging and enduring.  In fact, Cornford believes that Plato deliberately left out the Forms simply to show how hard, if not impossible, it is to philosophize without postu­lating them.

It was argued that we perceive through the sense-organs, not with them.  This relativizes them to mere channels providing psyche with sense-data.  Therefore, the senses cannot contain knowledge.  They are merely a neutral black box through which the external world reaches the internal world, providing the link for the heterogeneous elements of knowledge.

That the sense cannot contain knowledge does not, however, exclude sense-perceptions from carrying knowledge of the object being perceived.  Whether this is a possible reading or not hinges on how you read 186d.  Cooper refers back to 186c1-2 and argues that “the experiences which reach the soul through the body” are implied in 186d, thus making it improbable that any kind of perceptual acts of mind can be knowledge.

Second reading

The second reading points out that the common features are products of psyche working on its own.  Cooper says “What we are doing here is thinking something common to the objects of several senses, and Plato calls the predicates of such judgments ‘common terms’ ”.[ii]  In this way, judgments turn out to be the only way of bringing together sense-perceptions from several different organs of sense.  There is nothing in this part of the dialogue that alludes to the Forms.  Besides, Plato is not hinting at the epistemology of perception; judgments are just, at best, intra­personal objective declarations.  The reading does without any sort of metaphysical framework.

That the soul gets at the Forms is rather irreconcilable with Theaetetus’s way of describing the process: “I think the soul examines the being they have as compared with one another. Here it seems to be making a calculation within itself of past and present in relation to future.” (186a-b)  Whichever work of Plato you use for the theory of Forms, you will find that phenomena belonging to our time, space, and causality dimension are the main hindrances to access the realm of Forms.  That this passage alludes to the same kind of being as the form Being seems, therefore, quite implausible.  In this context, it is easy to interpret common features as related more to common sense (intuition+casual empiricism) than Forms.  Knowledge is always in relation to something, i.e., we are here defining relative knowledge.  Is not this exactly what Plato hints at when getting at the common features by relating to the past and the future?  Remember, though, that this easily leads to “the most astonishing and ridiculous things” (154b)  Just to get some kind of standard for these common features, Socrates exhorts to a “long and arduous development, involving a good deal of trouble and education.” (186c)  Again, this can be seen as relating back to the discussion of expertise.  Here it seems to imply that the expert is the one who is more abled to predict the future by forming concepts which are abstractions from this world’s three-dimensional contingencies.  By putting it this way, the theory of Form is hardly explicit.

Personally, I think that Plato is, in this part of Theaetetus, more hinting at the value of careful definition than at the theory of Forms.  In other words, Plato is not concerned with “how the mind acquires its knowledge of the common terms which it employs in its interpretative activity.”[iii]  What could have been a discussion of how to acquire universal concepts is left out because the main point is how we can understand this world, using this world.  It is important to remember that Theaetetus does not introduce metaphysics but actually argues about how to make sense of our senses and its impressions.

How does the second reading fit with knowledge being perception?  Socrates asserts that it is impossible to get at knowledge if you don’t get at truth, and truth is impossible if you don’t get at being.  That is, to get at knowledge, you have to get at being, ousia.  Because perception only gets at the giveness (perception per se) of the sensation, sensory awareness does not assert the being of the object.  To say that a thing exists, you use the reflective consciousness to make a judgment.  Judgment thus gets beyond the sheer giveness of the object by applying expertise to pronounce how the object is, i.e., predicate it.  Thus abstracting from the contingent environment the object is perceived in, one can get at a continuity which is assumed to reveal something about the nature, the being, of the object.  Knowing the being of an object, one is able to identify it under any circumstances.  Thus the being of an object is the unconditioned existence of an object, and as such unchanging.

Further, perception is subjective and it is only by reference to expertise that one can declare something true or false.  Therefore, Socrates can declare that “knowledge is to be found not in the experiences but in the process of reasoning about them; it is here, seemingly, not in the experiences, that it is possible to grasp being and truth.” (186d). That is, Plato goes along with Protagoras and Heraclitus in describing perception but asserts at 187a, contrary to Theaetetus that we can reach knowledge only through judgment, not perception.

The second reading appeals to expertise instead of Forms.  The result is the same, though, as perception cannot be knowledge.  Here, perception fails on the reasoning that perception does not imply any objective standards.  That is, expertise is needed to get at knowledge, as one has to reason, apply objective standards (expertise), to get at knowledge.  As knowledge is unchanging and forever the same, it is only by abstracting, through reasoning, from particular environment, that you can get at the unchanging nature of an object and thus arrive at knowledge of the object.

Crombie seems to agree with the second reading when he suggests that perception per se is simply seeing and does not, by its very function, provide any propositions.  Without propositions we cannot predicate and assert something as “true” or “beautiful”.  Therefore, if we can have knowledge at all of this world it can only happen through an intermediary and this intermediary would be the faculty of doxa, the ability to pronounce judgments.  What results from doxa is knowledge, episteme.  So, it is not just high-flying knowledge that requires reasoning; just to know anything requires judgment.

Conclusion

Whether arguing for or against the object of knowledge being Form, perception is not enough.  Personally, I would argue for Cornford’s standpoint.  I think that Cornford is right in so far as he is seeing that the Forms have to be implied.  However, I would not push the presence of the Forms as far as he does.  They are neither explicit nor denied; by not asserting them Plato is just showing that the Forms are not his main focus in the Theaetetus.  The Forms being in this way implied does not justify Cooper in letting the common features just refer to psyche, and never beyond.

Realism cannot help us to know the world; it can, perhaps, by randomness find relationships of predictive value; however, there is no foundation for this kind of “neural” knowledge.  This lack of foundation, being, is the reason for Socrates having to disprove Theaetetus.  Plato complemented Theaetetus with Protagoras and Heraclitus to bring out the vanity of finding a foundation inductively from a structure; only the reverse works where the foundation provides knowledge of the structure.  Therefore, I would argue that expertise is not enough for knowledge and would not agree with Cooper in rejecting the parallelism with the Republic VII on the grounds that there Plato does explicitly use the theory of Forms whereas the Theaetetus does not.[iv]  As mentioned above, the Forms are implicit here and thus there is a parallelism with the Republic.  However, we do the Theaetetus a disservice by putting the Forms in the forefront.  The main point of the Theaetetus is that perception alone is not enough to constitute knowledge; reasoning is a prerequisite for us to acquire knowledge of anything.

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[i] Crombie (1967).

[ii] Cooper p128.

[iii] ibid. p 138.

[iv] Cooper p 145-146.

True Judgment and Falsehood in the Theaetetus

Introduction

The second part of Theaetetus deals with the question of falsehood.  After having discarded the first notion of Theaetetus, that the object of knowledge is sensation, Theaetetus tries again by arguing that knowledge is true judgement.  As will be seen, Theaetetus’s second assertion allows Plato to bring ina careful study of the possibility of false judgment.

1.       Strategy

1.1.      Problem:

This part is opened with the argument “from knowing and not knowing”: all judgments must be true.  Simply put, making a judgment presupposes one has knowledge of the object being judged; having this knowledge, how can one then make a mistake about it?  This leads Theaetetus to conclude that false judgements are not possible.  Also, all judgments must be true as false judgment is judging something which is not, and judging something which does not exist, amounts to no judging at all.  Therefore, the only possible judgment is true judgment, that is judging what is.

The question of mind’s relation to its objects is, obviously, the main issue.  Like Denyer does, it will be helpful to list what kinds of knowledge are brought up here as bridge between subject and object:

1.      knowledge by acquaintance / description

2.      mediated / immediate knowledge

3.      partial / full knowledge

The first is suggested by Russell, where knowledge by description is less fallible than knowledge by acquaintance because of analysis and reflection.  Plato deals with this problem in

Plato touches upon the question of whether only immediate knowledge counts for knowledge, or if knowledge by account is possible.  This is mainly dealt with at the end of part II, in the analogy of the jury.

Thirdly, is full knowledge required to make a judgment, let alone a true judgment?  This will be discussed within the framework of the aviary, and by comparison, the wax-block.

1.2       Solution:

As response to the claim that only true judgment is possible, we have three suggested solutions. First, Socrates argues that “other-thinking”, thinking about one thing when only another is correct, accounts for false judgment.  As a second proposal, Socrates puts forward the Wax Tablet:  We have imprints of previous perceptions, and when perceiving we try to fit the new impression into the old marks.  This allows for misfitting, that is misidentification of the object, and results in false judgment.  The third account is the Aviary where the birds flying around are symbolizing pieces of knowledge and, also, pieces of ignorance.  In contrast to the Wax Tablet which deals with falsehood in relation to sense-perception, the Aviary deals with false judgment in thinking.  It makes falsehood possible by contrasting active and passive knowledge.

To investigate the proposed strategy of Plato, we will first account and analyze true judgment and then try to see whether false judgment is made possible through any of the three solutions.

2.       True judgment

Having defeated the notion of knowledge is perception, Socrates clarifies Theaetetus’s new notion thus: “There are two forms of judgement, true and false; and your definition is that true judgement is knowledge?” (187c).  There are to separate accounts that both concludes that only true judgment is possible. First, we have the argument “from knowing and not knowing” and second, “from being and not being”.

2.1       Argument “from knowing and not knowing”

Socrates comes up with what is argued to be an exhaustive list of possibilities of judging falsely:

1. something you know is something else you know                               (KX=KY)
2. something you do not know is something else you do not know           (UX=UY)
3. something you know is something which you do not now                    (KX=UY)
4. something you do not know is something you know                            (UX=KY)

where K is known, U is unknown, and {X,Y} are distinct members of the set of possible objects.

Furthermore, by ascertaining i) that we either know or do not know a thing, and that this is true for all things; and ii) that the objects of judgement are things which he knows or does not; and iii) knowledge precludes ignorance, Socrates argues that judging falsely is impossible. (188ab)

ii) is modified to that objects must be of things one knows: “Is it possible that a man who knows neither Theaetetus nor Socrates should take it into his head that Socrates is Theaetetus or Theaetetus Socrates?” (188b).  Given this more stringent qualification (iib), that judgments must be of objects one knows, false judgments are made impossible because knowing something precludes one from mistaking it, misidentify, for something else where “something else” must be unknown as the known objects are already excluded from misidentification.  However, the unknown can by iib) not even enter”into his head”.  Therefore, only true judgments can exist.

Even though Socrates says that 1-4 is an exhaustive list of possible false judgments, misidentifications, we immediately note that, for example, negative falsehoods and misdescriptions are excluded.  As pointed out by Burnyeat, the inclusion of misdescriptions makes the identity-statements less powerful as the two members in the identity being two distinct and exclusive objects do not make it a false identity once misdescriptions are introduced.  For example,  “I am you” is an example of misidentification and, consequently, false judgment.  Saying that “I am capable”, is a case of misdescription, perhaps; it does not by its very structure reveal whether it is true or false, though.

Is it by weakness of argument that Plato leaves out misdescriptions?  Fine argues that they can be inferred here, given their inclusion in the “other-judging”-account later on.  Misdescriptions imply misidentification: judging me competent when incompetent presupposes a misidentification of incompetence for competence.  Burnyeat suggests that Plato is here really concerned with false identity-judgments and, therefore, does not include them.

2.2       Argument “from being and not being”

Even though Socrates seems content with having concluded that false judgments are not possible, he suggests to Theaetetus that they try another route, “by way of being and not being”: “Can a man judge what is not, either about one of the things which are, or just by itself?” (188cd).  There is a crucial distinction here between a)judging what is not about one of the objects and b)judging what is not by itself.  The latter implies that what is wrongly judged does simply not exist.  On the other hand, the former says that we are judging something but so, wrongly applied.

When judging, one judges something which is.  If judging something which is not, one does not judge.  Judging nothing, one does not judge at all.(189ab)  Coupling this progression with the initial definition: “it is when a man judges about anything things which are not, that  he is inevitably judging falsely”(188d), we get that the object of false judgment is “nothing”.  This absurd result seems to stem from Socrates’s confusion between a and b.  The object of the false judgment exists but the content of the false judgment does not apply; it is wrongly described.  Socrates did not see this distinction between what Burnyeat describes as “what a judgement is about and what is judged about it.”[i]  The upshot is, thus, that false judgments are about objects which are.  As a response to this conclusion, Socrates offers the “other-judging account”.

3.       Heterodoxy

As a first attempt to save the possibility of falsehood, Socrates puts forward the idea of “other-judging”, heterodoxia.  False judgment is possible if when thinking about something which exists, one substitutes, in thought, this one thing for something else, which also exists. In other words, he “missed the thing which was the object of his consideration,” (189c).

It seems as Socrates, having confused the above-mentioned distinction between a and b, rectifies the mistake by putting forward the heterodoxy-account.  There is, however, more to this account than to a: in a, we assumed a misdescription; here, on contrary, misdescription is implied by the account assumming a misidentification.  In “other-judging”, one actuallly exchange one thought for another.

Having stated the idea behind “other-judging”, Socrates tries to debunk it.  By equating a statement addressed to oneself and judgment, Socrates can once again apply the already used argument of saying that having two things in front of you, both of which you know, it is impossible to judge the one for the other.  Here, judging the one for the other amounts to saying that “A cow must be a horse”.  Having both in one’s mind, one cannot mistake cow for horse; neither is it possible to mistake one for the other if only one is present to one’s mind.  Therefore, Socrates concludes that the heterodoxy-account offers no help in explaining the existence of false judgment.

The reason for not criticizing Socrates’ easiness in discarding other-judging as allowing for false judgment by saying that it is ridiculous to mistake odd for even, would be that this account is not meant to be sophisticated but rather suggestive.  If, however, one would like to analyze it, one finds that it is not that common-sensical doing away with the possibility of taking ugly for beauty.  Assuming that there are more than one way that one’s thought can refer to a single object,  it is far from implausible that one exchanges a cow for horse.  Denyer puts the argument like this: distinguish between people’s truistic beliefs and your own cooments.  Thus, in “A horse is a horse” the first mentioning of “a horse” refers to your mind’s comments, saying, of what is, by the second “a horse”, a truistic belief of other minds, and as such accepted as a standard.  Moreover, the above-mentioned, “A cow must be a horse”, is not that straightforward anymore: even if one thinks that a specific cow is a horse, it is not implied that one thinks that “Cow is horse”.  Does being wrong in a particular instance indicate that one has a general wrong conception.  Furthermore, is one completely wrong by describing one cow as horse if not the whole truth about the specific cow is that it is a cow; using Plato’s account of particulars and universals, I would argue that one is not misidentifying the cow by calling it horse, but is definitively describing it incorrectly (misdescription). 

Above all, it is Frege that we find the semantic basis for this problem: there is a crucial difference between Sinn(sense) and Bedeutung(meaning).  The sense of an expression is its content of knowledge and considered as such objective.  The relation between expression and meaning shows the extra-linguistic reality in a sentence.  Thus, sense refers to the very object you think of as opposed to what you consider it as.  The extra-linguistic reality allows X to not to be thought of as X, as a qualification by Bedeutung is allowed.

4.       The Wax Tablet

After the heterodoxy account has refuted the possibility of false judgement, Socrates suggests that they have to find a way out; otherwise, they will be will be like seasick passengers who cannot do anything but let the boat steer its own way forth.  As a new attempt to get in control of the argument, Socrates says that misidentification is possible in case 3 (KX=UY), i.e., one can make a judgment about an object you do not know.  This forms the basis for the Wax Block analogy.

View the mind as a wax block.  The wax is the memory-function of the mind, i.e., it retains perceptions by letting them make a stamp on it. “Whatever is impressed upon the wax we remember and know so long as the image remains in the wax.”(191d)  Secondly, when perceiving again, we fit the new impression with one of the existing stamps.  Whereas Socrates elaborates on the different qualities of wax corresponding to different abilities to remember, there is no mentioning of the difference which distinguishes the way of perceiving which lets the perceptions actually make a stamp on the wax, and the other perceptions which are just fitted to the already existing stamps.

Sometimes the wrong stamp is fitted to the perception, and false judgment results.  Socrates describes this as seeing two objects at a distance and “applying the visual perception of the one to the sign of the other.” (193c)  Given two known objects, {X, Y}, and letting r stand for right coupling and w for wrong coupling, we have the following possible sets: XrX, YrY, XwY, YwX.  The two last constitute false judgment.  They are caused by wrong consistency of the wax, i.e., the stamp has been blurred and thereby less clear which causes the stamp to be wrongly paired.  By allowing for two distinct epistemic ways to mind, false judged is made possible.  The same thing can enter mind either by perception directly or by a stamp being fit to the current perception; thus same object can be judged different without it being an apparent false identity.[ii]

Having concluded that false and true judgments exist and that false judgment arises in connecting perception with mind (195bc), Socrates admits that this excludes false judgment due to thought mistakes.  In fact, Socrates discards the Wax Block model because it is confined to explain false judgment due to perception and thought, not just thought.  For example, counting the numbers 5 and 7 as number 11 does not have anything with perception to do but is a pure thought mistake.  Having both known numbers before oneself, in mind, it is impossible to judge wrongly.  “it would mean that the same man must, at one and the same time, both know and not know the same objects.” (196c).  Just to find an all-encompassing answer to what false judgment is, the Wax Block model is given up and Socrates moves on to ask if a man can both know and not know the same object.

In the Wax Block analogy, perception is directly presented to the mind; there is no intermediary thought-process (cf. end of part 1).  How is it then possible to distinguish one thing for another? Must we not assume some kind of judgmental activity before the impression reaches the mind as a presentation?

5.       The Aviary

Are the birds propositions  such that 7+5=12 or terms like 12.  Crombie argue that birds are “terms thought of as identical with the true propositions in which they figure.” p119

6.        Conclusion

In analyzing a dialogue like the Theaetetus, I have adopted a slightly schizophrenic approach.  On the one hand, the way forward is by relentless questioning, a lernen built on the pre-requisite “repititio est mater studiorum”.  On the other hand, I am very often struck by Plato’s power to deliver clear intuitions.  Analyzing these intuitions shows a genius in giving birth to them but less so in delivering a complex and coherent system of thought, which lends itself to scrutiny.  Getting the intuition is not the same as working out the structure which it hints at.  In this way, the two ways of knowledge in the analogy of the Jury comes together: you have to be there, to get direct knowledge; nevertheless, that is not enough as you have to also work through what you did perceive (cf 186c).  In this sense, direct knowledge is only potential knowledge; it is unqualified.  Therefore, the sense-perceptions are sometimes linked to the wrong stamp in the wax-block, as that model only accounts for non-mediated knowledge, perception unaided by thought.  Likewise, the Aviary shows us that it is not enough to have knowledge as a kind of repetition; we must have made it our own, if possessing it is to exclude us from making false judgments.  As concisely pointed out in the subtitle to Hadot’s book on Plotinus[iii], the vision‑immediate knowledge‑is not simple, but by grasping the whole of the structure, getting at the supra-structure, knowledge presents itself as the simplicity of vision.

Using the Theatetus, leads me to think that careful analysis is not only useful but necessary in order for us to progress to the understanding which was to Plato vision.  Therefore, the dialogue shows how one is to relate to perception and thinking in order to get at knowledge.

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[i][i] Burnyeat (1990), p 78.

[ii] In the Vedantic acosmism of Shankara we find the famous snake-rope analogy.  The upshot is that the false has an existence by virtue of the real.  Thus, he agrees with the Wax Block model which only allows for false judgment if both things we perceive are also known.  This is in direct contradiction to case b in section 2.2.  Crombie argues for case b when explaining agnoia, likewise Denyer puts forward the same point in saying “if one fails in the attempt to make a true judgment, one does not succeed even in making a false one instead.”  Arguing against b, Shankara offers us a very similar analogy to 191b, where the main difference from case b and Crombie/Denyer is not the presentation but the interpretation.  The following quote from Bhattacharyya illumines the existence of the false:

“The snake is first presented, it is next corrected, and then it is contemplated as corrected.  It is in the first place presented and believed as real, though it is not affirmed or judged as real, its reality being ony not denied... The relation, it may be noted, is unique: the unreal implies the real but the real does not imly nor is it in any way affected by the unreal. The rope is a complete content which does not require to reject the content ‘snake’ and is neither the better nor the worse for having rejected. The snake, however, in the context is there as rejected or corrected by the other content, as illusory in its presence. The real has the unreal here as its free implication.”[ii]

[iii] Hadot, Pierre Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1993.