39 pages • 1 hour read
PlatoTheaetetus
Nonfiction | Book | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Eucleides and Terpsion
Eucleides and Terpsion, two citizens of Megara, a town near Athens, run into each other following the latter’s sojourn in the country. Eucleides reveals that he was also out of town recently, on his way to the harbor. There he came across a man called Theaetetus, just returned from a battle in Corinth, between Sparta and Athens, where he had been wounded and contracted dysentery. Eucleides and Terpsion both praise Theaetetus’s courage. Eucleides shares how, on his way back from meeting Theaetetus, he “recollected with admiration how prophetically Socrates had spoken about him” (3).
He recalls how Socrates had engaged in a philosophical conversation with Theaetetus when Theaetetus was 16, shortly before Socrates’s death. Further, when Eucleides went to Athens, Socrates repeated what he said to Theaetetus to him. Terpsion asks if Eucleides could recall this discussion. Eucleides explains that he cannot by heart, but he did write down what Socrates said upon returning home. He filled in any gaps in recollection through subsequent visits to Athens. Since they are both recovering from long journeys, Eucleides and Terpsion agree to look at the record of this dialogue together while they rest.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Introductory Conversation”
Eucleides clarifies how he wrote up what Socrates told him. He did not simply transcribe Socrates’s words verbatim; rather, he reconstructed the dialogue as he imagined it took place between Socrates, Theaetetus, and an older geometrician named Theodorus. He also omitted all comments like “he said” or “he didn’t agree” (4) by Socrates, replacing this with the dialogue form in which the characters speak directly.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Theodorus’ Expertise”
Chapter 3 marks the start of the dialogue. Socrates asks Theodorus whether there are any promising young men among his geometry students who are interested in “cultivating wisdom” (5). Theodorus replies that there is one: Theaetetus. This young man, according to Theodorus, resembles Socrates in appearance, possessing a snub nose. However, he has extraordinary intellectual talents and is both quick-witted and courageous.
Upon meeting Theaetetus, who has just returned from the athletics track, Socrates immediately tries establishing whether Theodorus’s claims are true. As such, he examines Theaetetus’s face for likeness with his own. He then suggests that, regarding certain claims, it is sufficient to establish the expertise of the individual making them, to believe their truth. For example, we should believe someone who says he tuned two instruments the same if we established that they were an expert musician. However, if it is a claim about someone’s virtue or wisdom, the situation is different. In that case one must establish the other’s wisdom directly for oneself. This is what Socrates intends to do with Theaetetus.
Chapter 4 Summary: “What Is knowledge?”
Socrates asks both Theaetetus and Theodorus whether someone is wise to the extent that they are knowledgeable. He follows with another question, asking, “what do you think knowledge is?” (9). Theodorus demurs from answering, so Theaetetus attempts instead. He suggests that knowledge means learning in different areas, both individually and collectively. For instance, the mathematician has knowledge of geometry, and the shoemaker knowledge of making shoes. Socrates, however, finds this answer unsatisfactory. This is because, according to him, Theaetetus has simply listed various types of knowledge without specifying what they have in common. To accomplish the latter, a unifying definition and essence must be specified.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Theaetetus’ Mathematical Prowess”
Theaetetus describes how he and his fellow students devised a method to classify the different types of numerical powers in mathematics. Socrates encourages Theaetetus to use this method as an example of how to proceed in the case of defining knowledge. In other words, they should try to find a single account that incorporates all forms of knowledge.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Socrates’ Midwifery”
Theaetetus feels pained because of his struggles with Socrates’s question. Socrates says this is because Theaetetus is “suffering the pains of labour” (13). Socrates explains that he is the son of a midwife and that he practices the same art, but in an intellectual sense. What he means is that he, like the midwife, is “barren” and does not produce positive wisdom himself. Rather, he helps coax out true ideas and wisdom from others. Further, just as midwifery requires distinguishing true from false pregnancies, Socrates’s talent is distinguishing between genuine ideas and imitations or falsehoods.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Knowledge Is Perception”
Theaetetus tries another proper definition of all knowledge. He offers the theory that knowledge is perception. Socrates identifies this idea with that of the philosopher Protagoras (490-420 BCEE), who stated that “man is the measure of all things” (151). Taken more exactly, this means that what appears to be real to each of us is in fact real. If the wind feels cold to someone, then this constitutes knowledge that the wind is cold. Socrates then discusses how this theory is connected to the notion, derived from the philosopher Heraclitus (535-475 BCEE), that nothing is ever stable but always in a process of flux or becoming.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
At first glance, the conversation between Eucleides and Terpsion that starts Theaetetus appears little more than a framing device. Although well-crafted, the story about Eucleides meeting a grown-up Theaetetus, and recalling Socrates praising him as a young man, seems like a means of naturally introducing the main philosophical dialogue. Yet several clues indicate that more is going on. First, there is the timing. Eucleides mentions that the Socrates-Theaetetus discussion happened “shortly before his death” (3). This comment might seem innocuous, given that Socrates was not young at the time, and years have passed since the dialogue. But the circumstances of Socrates’s death make it otherwise. As contemporary Athenians and even 21st-century readers would know, Socrates did not die of natural causes. Rather, he was forced to take his own life, following a trial in which the Athenian state found him guilty of impiety and corrupting the youth.
It is telling that Plato sets the main dialogue just prior to this. Indeed, the ending of Theaetetus emphasizes the point even more. In the last few sentences of the text, Socrates informs Theaetetus that he must depart to face the charges brought against him. Thus, the whole work is framed by Socrates’s trial and demise. Further, the way we are to interpret this event is subtly intimated by details in Eucleides’s conversation with Terpsion. Theaetetus, though wounded, is “getting more trouble from the disease that’s broken out in the army” (3), meaning dysentery. In other words, Theaetetus, a courageous warrior, has been brought low not by the Spartan enemy at Corinth but by poor sanitation and organization in the Athenian army. In this way, Theaetetus’s fate can be read as a metaphor for that of Socrates. Socrates sought to help Athenian society become wiser and happier. Rather than welcome or encourage this, that society chose to murder him. This idea also explains Theaetetus’s physical appearance. In the “snubness of his nose and the prominence of his eyes” (5), he is said to resemble Socrates. This reinforces the sense that Plato wants the reader to draw a parallel between the injustice of what happened to Theaetetus in the army and the injustice meted out to Socrates by the state.
However, if Plato sought to stress the short-sightedness and immorality of Athenian society in relation to Socrates, several key questions remain. Important questions arise about why this took place. Chiefly, if Socrates’s philosophy was so helpful to the Athenians, how did this helpfulness manifest? Relatedly, if this was so potentially beneficial to them, why did they want him dead? The answers to both questions are intertwined. In contrast to other teachers and philosophers of his day, Socrates practiced the Socratic or elenctic method, a style of conversation that uses back-and-forth questions and answers to refine ideas and encourage critical thinking. This is explained well in Chapter 6 by Socrates’s claim to be a type of philosophical midwife. On the surface of things, this appears a rather productive, but also humble, approach to philosophy. Others have ideas, and it is Socrates’s task to ensure those ideas are delivered safely and properly.
Yet behind this metaphor is something more ruthless and radical. As Socrates says to Theaetetus, “I inspect the things you say, I take one to be an imitation, not something true, and so ease it out and throw it away” (16-17). Socrates’s role, and the Socratic method, is essentially destructive. Unlike a philosopher who offers people knowledge, Socrates takes something away. His task is to disabuse people of the knowledge they think they have and produce aporia, which means puzzlement or intellectual doubt. This is why many Athenians turned against him. Socrates says that powerful individuals, or alleged experts, were “literally ready to bite me, when I was taking some piece of silliness away from them” (17). In Socrates’s method, complacent ideas and the sense of security and self-importance that come with them are replaced with confusion and a sense of one’s fundamental ignorance. According to Plato, the very thing that got Socrates killed—his ability to disturb complacent beliefs and values and thus lay ground for genuine knowledge—is also why he was so important to Athenian society.
Related Titles
By Plato
