7 h 21 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the things you call knowledge cannot stand up to a few careful questions?
In Plato's Theaetetus, Socrates asks a gifted young mathematician what knowledge is. The older geometer Theodorus joins them in Athens, shortly before Socrates faces the charges that will lead to his death. The question sounds simple. Finding an answer means looking closely at what it means to perceive, believe, and give a reason.
Theaetetus begins with a bold suggestion: knowledge is perception. Socrates tests the idea, drawing the young man into questions about truth and false belief. Rather than hand down answers, he acts as a midwife to another person's thoughts. You follow an argument as it takes shape, meets resistance, and demands another attempt.
What you’ll discover
- A question worth testing Look again at what you mean whenever you say you know something.
- Socrates as midwife Meet a questioner who helps others bring their own ideas to birth.
- Perception under pressure Follow the claim that knowledge is perception into searching questions about truth.
- Beyond a correct belief Explore why holding a true judgment may not be the same as knowing.
- The demand for reasons Consider what an account must add to a belief before it becomes knowledge.
Is it for you?
This suits curious readers who like to see an argument built and pulled apart, students meeting Plato for the first time, and anyone who cares about truth. If you want firm answers at the end, you may find it frustrating.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Socrates the midwife asks what knowledge is
- Perhaps knowledge is only perception
- Protagoras undone and the mind's own work
- True judgment cannot be the whole story
- Perhaps knowledge is true judgment with an account
- What the dialogue leaves behind
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Theaetetus
by Plato
Socrates and a young mathematician examine what knowledge means.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
Socrates the midwife asks what knowledge is
The dialogue opens with a frame. Two men, Euclides and Terpsion, meet in Megara and speak of Theaetetus, who has been carried home from an army camp near Corinth, wounded and ill. Euclides says he once wrote down a conversation that Socrates had with the boy long ago, and a slave now reads it aloud. That written conversation is the rest of the book.
In it, Theodorus praises Theaetetus as quick, gentle and brave in learning. Theaetetus has been working on mathematics, and he has helped show how to deal with square roots that cannot be written as simple ratios. Socrates asks him a question that sounds easy. What is knowledge? Theaetetus first lists things that can be known, such as geometry and the craft of the cobbler. Socrates points out that a list is not an answer. He asks for what all these things share.
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What is Plato's Theaetetus about?
It asks what knowledge is. Socrates and the young mathematician Theaetetus test three answers: knowledge as perception, as true judgment, and as true judgment with an account. Each answer is examined and found lacking.
Who is Theaetetus in the dialogue?
He is a gifted young Athenian mathematician, a real person known for work on irrational roots. Plato shows him as quick, modest and brave in argument, and the dialogue is named in his honor.
What does Socrates mean by being a midwife?
Socrates says his mother was a midwife and that he does the same work for ideas. He does not give birth to ideas himself but helps others bring theirs out and checks whether they are sound.
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