Hesiod in Plato’s Theaetetus

This paper discusses the two references to Hesiod—one explicit (207a), the other implicit (155d)—that we encounter in the Theaetetus. Whereas at first glance Socrates seems to evoke Hesiod with a view to lending authority to or illustrating his own ongoing argument, if we go back to the original Hesiodic text and examine the wider context of the lines that Plato has Socrates quote or allude to, it becomes clear that the meaning attached to them is arbitrary, even absurd. Although this distortion appears to be “sophistic,” owing to its seemingly self-serving purposes, upon closer investigation it proves to be philosophically significant.