Plato's Political Philosophy

CHAPTER 8 Knowledge and Illusion

CHAPTER 8 Knowledge and Illusion The Philebus’ concern with knowledge and measure points politically to Plato’s third dialogue about politics, the Statesman, which considers political “science ,” or political knowledge, and features an analysis of measuring and precision . It is last in a group that includes the Theatetus and Sophist. To understand it we first must discuss these two. The Theatetus The Theatetus’ subject is knowledge. It does not present an epistemology in the modern sense, however, if by that we mean an attempt to provide indubitable support for the knowledge we think we have. Rather, its question is what knowledge is, as the Laches asks what courage is. Because the chief interlocutor , Theatetus, looks like Socrates, moreover, we may say that the dialogue studies knowledge from the standpoint of what resembles Socrates. The dialogue’s first major topic is the difficulty inherent in the claim that each thing is utterly different from everything else, that anything supposedly uniform and stable is only conventional, that there is no common measure, 216 Politics and Knowledge and that to know is merely to sense or perceive immediately, not to reason. Socrates, together with his interlocutors Theatetus and Theodorus, counters this claim by showing its paradoxes, and by indicating counterexamples: resemblance in looks and names, mathematics, conversation and agreement, self-awareness in wonder or perplexity, inner truth and surface pretense, memory , anticipation, and the generality of what is beneficial. The dialogue’s second major topic develops alternatives to this Heraclitan claim, suggested by these counterexamples. It uncovers paradoxes in these alternatives, however, and indicates the difficulties in showing that anything is uniform or true. Furthermore, it offers examples of difference, or falseness, for which claims about knowledge and truth are apparently unable to account. The result is that the Theatetus surfaces the elements of knowledge, but both knowledge and error, and sameness and difference, remain mysterious. I Plato presents the Theatetus as an account of Socrates’ conversation with young Theatetus, which Eucleides transcribes from Socrates’ narration. Eucleides first wrote down what he remembered; he then repeatedly checked his account with Socrates and corrected it, and he then removed Socrates’ “he agreed,” ‘’he consented,” and, presumably, even more telling remarks. He records the transformed conversation in a book his slave now reads to Terpison.1 So, what we read resembles Socrates’ conversation by at least one remove (Eucleides’ rewrite ), possibly two (Socrates’ possible dishonesty in recounting it), and perhaps even a third, fourth, and fifth (Socrates and Eucleides’ possibly poor memories, and Eucleides’ possible dishonesty). Whether Socrates’ conversations fully reflect his thought or the truth is uncertain, moreover, as is our ability to understand.2 All this, furthermore, is transmitted or created by Plato. The dialogue thus at best resembles a true Socratic conversation, let alone directly recording his or Plato’s internal thought.3 The limits to knowledge are thus presented to us from the outset. Plato’s opening suggests another limit to knowledge beyond the ambiguity of conversation or transmission, namely, our mind’s connection to our body. Theatetus is dying from wounds suffered in war, but he presses for home, against medical advice. Socrates claims to be more concerned with smart young Athenians than with those from elsewhere. The dialogue ends as Socrates goes to answer the charges for which he is soon tried and killed. In general, then, the life of knowledge belongs to and is affected by the body, one’s own, and Knowledge and Illusion 217 politics in ways that the Philebus, say, suggests but leaves murky. Their connection becomes the subject of Socrates’ long discussion with Theodorus in the middle of the dialogue. (Theodorus is the one who introduces him to Theatetus .)4 Socrates sketches there a picture in which “philosophy” and politics are radically or, indeed, ridiculously, separated. II Socrates asks Theatetus what knowledge (or science) is. Theatetus’ answer mentions each and all the sciences but does not say what the single “knowledge ” is in them. Socrates’ example of what he wants is mud. Knowledge is not this or that science, as mud is not a potter’s, furnace maker’s, or brick maker’s mud. Rather, mud is earth kneaded with liquid, something we must first know in order to point out mud’s different types. These types vary by different amounts of water and earth, so it is easy to say what they all are or share. Matters...