Classical literature; Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
But are we not inverting the natural order in looking for opinion before
we have found knowledge? And knowledge is not true opinion; for the
Athenian dicasts have true opinion but not knowledge. What then
is knowledge? We answer (3), 'True opinion, with definition or
explanation.' But all the different ways in which this statement may be
understood are set aside, like the definitions of courage in the Laches,
or of friendship in the Lysis, or of temperance in the Charmides. At
length we arrive at the conclusion, in which nothing is concluded.
There are two special difficulties which beset the student of the
Theaetetus: (1) he is uncertain how far he can trust Plato's account of
the theory of Protagoras; and he is also uncertain (2) how far, and in
what parts of the dialogue, Plato is expressing his own opinion.
The dramatic character of the work renders the answer to both these
questions difficult.
1. In reply to the first, we have only probabilities to offer. Three
main points have to be decided: (a) Would Protagoras have identified
his own thesis, 'Man is the measure of all things,' with the other,
'All knowledge is sensible perception'? (b) Would he have based the
relativity of knowledge on the Heraclitean flux? (c) Would he have
asserted the absoluteness of sensation at each instant? Of the work of
Protagoras on 'Truth' we know nothing, with the exception of the two
famous fragments, which are cited in this dialogue, 'Man is the measure
of all things,' and, 'Whether there are gods or not, I cannot tell.' Nor
have we any other trustworthy evidence of the tenets of Protagoras, or
of the sense in which his words are used. For later writers, including
Aristotle in his Metaphysics, have mixed up the Protagoras of Plato, as
they have the Socrates of Plato, with the real person.
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