>> Welcome back to Intro to
Philosophy 1010, Summer 2019 session.
Here's our book, Introduction
to World Philosophy.
In this video, I'm going over
Plato's dialogue the Theaetetus.
And this is for Exam 2, and the question I will
be discussing in this video is Part B, Number 5.
In Plato's Theaetetus, why does Socrates
reject the definition of knowledge
as justified true belief or true
opinion combined with reason?
So, what is knowledge?
It's when you have a true opinion and
can explain why that opinion is true.
Knowledge isn't just a true opinion.
You might have an opinion
that turns out to be true,
but the reasons for your
opinion aren't adequate.
So, for example, in the introductory notes,
you might, a jury might find someone guilty,
and that person might actually be guilty.
But the reasons that the jury
thought they were guilty were false.
So, they have a true opinion.
This person's guilty.
But the reasons that they found
the person to be guilty are false.
So, they don't have knowledge.
They just have an accurate
opinion based on faulty knowledge.
Therefore, maybe Theaetetus was
saying, here's a possible definition
that he said I heard someone else say
once, and here's what he says on page 339,
Theaetetus says, he said, the son of person,
that true opinion combined
with reason was knowledge.
But that the opinion that had no reason was out
of the sphere of knowledge, and that the things
of which there is no rationale
account are not knowable.
So, Socrates says excellent,
but then how do you distinguish
between things that are and not knowable?
And then Theaetetus says, I don't know, why
don't you talk about that and I'll remember,
I think if you say that adequately.
So, Socrates says, let me give you
a dream and return for a dream.
I thought that I too had a dream, and I heard in
my dream that the prime evil letters or elements
out of which you and I nor all the things
are compounded have no reason or explanation.
You can only name them, but no predicate
can be either affirmed or denied of them.
So, here he's going to talk
about what is knowledge.
Well, learning about the basic elements
of things, maybe that's what knowledge is.
But the problem is, you can't
define the basic elements.
And uses the analogy of letters in the alphabet.
You can say words, and you can explain what
they are by breaking them down into syllables,
but then when you want to say what the
syllables are, you have to break them
down into the individual letters.
Well, then how do you define
each individual letter?
You can't.
That's the foundation, and the
foundation can't be defined.
It's the undefinable foundation upon
which definitions are built,
or out of which they are built.
So, therefore, there's the problem.
How can knowledge be justified true
belief, or true opinion, with a reason,
when you can't give a rational account
of the fundamental elements of knowledge?
So, that's, I'll just read
here some of what he said.
He said, but if the first elements
could not be described, well,
but if the first elements could be
described and had a definition of their own,
they would be spoken of apart from all else.
But none of these primeval
elements can be defined.
They can only be named, for
they have nothing but a name.
And the things compounded of them, as they
are complex, are expressed by a combination
of names, for the combination of
names is the essence of a definition.
Thus then the elements or
letters are only objects
of perception and can't be defined or known.
But the syllables or combinations of them
are known and expressed and comprehendible
by true opinion when, therefore, anyone
forms the true opinion of anything
without rational explanation, you may say
that his mind is true of the exercise,
but he has no knowledge, for he
who can't give and receive a reason
for a thing has no knowledge of it.
But when he adds rational explanation,
then he is perfected in knowledge.
So, that's what his dream was.
Is that what you're trying to say, Theaetetus?
And Theaetetus says, precisely.
And then they come up, okay,
there's a problem with that.
That I don't think is going to work.
And the main reason is you can't
define those fundamental terms.
They are, they are self evident,
if they are anything,
and so while knowledge might very
well be possible, you can't define it
as a true opinion backed up with a
reason, because you can't give a reason
for the first principles upon
which knowledge is based.
So, at the left hand column on page 340, the
very bottom, it says, and is the education
of the heart player complete unless he can
tell what string answers to a particular note?
The notes, as everyone would allow,
are the elements or letters of music.
Exactly. Then if we argue from the letters
and syllables, we know to other simples
and compounds, we'll say that
the letters are simple elements
as a class are much more certainly known than
the syllables in which are more indispensable.
So, this is, he's reiterating this main point.
We know the letters more than we
know the syllables that they create.
And we know the syllables more than
we know the words that they create.
Because the letters are fundamental.
And yet the letters or the
notes, they can't be defined.
It just it is what it is.
So, he's saying here, how
do you define the letter A?
The letter A, you could say, well,
it's the first letter in the alphabet.
But what does A mean?
A means A. It means the sound,
A, or a, the short version.
It's just a sound without an explanation.
We know it more fundamentally, yet it
doesn't have a definition other than itself.
It is its own definition.
How do you spell the letter A?
A. So, that's defining a term with itself.
And that's not giving a rational explanation.
So, there's the fundamental flaw with defining
knowledge as true belief with a reason.
So, so then on the right hand
column on page 340, Socrates says,
and there might be given other proofs
of this belief if I'm not mistaken.
But in looking for them, let's not lose sight
of the question before us, which is the meaning
of the statement that right
opinion with rational definition
or explanation is the most
perfect form of knowledge.
Theaetetus says, we must not lose sight of that.
Socrates, well, and what is the
meaning of the term explanation?
I think that we have a choice of three meanings.
So, he gives three meanings for the explanation.
The first one is just in the first place,
the meaning may be manifesting one's thought
by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging
and opinion in the stream which flows
from the lips as in a mirror of water.
So, the first explanation is,
you just describe it with words.
Okay, but that's, anyone can describe things.
So, that's not giving a rational account.
So, that's not the definition that
they're looking for of explanation.
So, then Socrates says, okay, maybe
it's getting the elements of a thing,
describing the elements of which it's made.
Maybe that's giving an adequate explanation.
And they talk about the example on the right, on
the left hand column on page 341, Socrates says,
as, for example, when Hesed says that
a wagon is made up of 100 planks,
now neither you nor I could
describe all of them individually.
But if anyone asks what a wagon is, we would
be content to answer that a wagon consists
of wheels, axle, body, rims, yoke.
Certainly, and our opponent will probably
laugh at us just as he would if we professed
to be grammarians and to give a grammatical
account of the name of Theaetetus,
and yet could only tell the syllables
and not the letters of your name.
So, an enumeration of the elements
out of which anything is composed,
maybe that is the definition of
explanation that we're looking for.
So, what is knowledge?
True opinion with an explanation.
Okay, how do you define explanation?
Well, it can't be just describing a thing,
because anyone can describe
a thing as if in a mirror.
So, that's not analyzing it.
Maybe breaking it down to its fundamental
elements, that's a proper explanation.
But then you come back to the
problem when you analyze words,
you come down to the fundamental
elements of the letters.
Well, how do you give an explanation
for the fundamental elements
of the fundamental elements themselves?
You can't.
So, that can't be an adequate
definition of knowledge either.
So, then Socrates says that maybe it's
distinguishing the differences between things
and pointing out what differentiates one thing
from everything else that is similar to it.
So, on the bottom of the right hand column
on page 341, Socrates says, then, my friend,
there is such a thing as right opinion united
with definition or explanation, which doesn't
yet attain to the exactness of knowledge.
Though it seems so.
And what we would fancy to be a perfect
definition of knowledge is a dream only.
But perhaps we better not say so just yet, for
whether or not three explanations of knowledge.
Okay, so here he's reviewing
over on page 342, Theaetetus,
you're quite right, there's still one remaining.
The first was the image or
expression of the mind in speech.
The second, just mentioned, is a way of reaching
the whole by an enumeration of the elements.
But what's the third definition?
There is further the popular notion of
telling the mark or sign of difference,
which distinguishes the thing
in question from all others.
So, he gives an example of how hard that is to
do because what you describe a person, he says,
okay, a person, you know, I imagine Theaetetus
on the right hand column on page 342,
Socrates says, tell me now, how in that
case could I have formed the judgment
of you any more than of anyone else?
So, what is an explanation?
Explaining what differentiates
one thing from everything else.
What is unique about that thing.
So, here's what Socrates says.
Suppose that I imagined Theaetetus to
be a man who has nose, eyes, and mouth,
and every other member complete, how would
that enable me to distinguish the Theaetetus
from Theodorus or from some outer barbarian?
Theaetetus says, how could it?
Socrates goes on to say, or if I had further
conceived of you not only as having nose
and eyes, but as of having a snub nose and
prominent eyes, should I have any more notion
of you than of myself and
others who resemble me?
Certainly not.
So, surely, I can have no
conception of Theaetetus
until your snub nosedness has left an impression
on my mind different form the snub nosedness
of all others I've seen, and until your
other peculiarities have a like distinctness.
And so when I meet you tomorrow, the
right opinion will be recalled most true.
The right opinion applies to
the perception of differences.
Clearly. What then shall we say about reason or
explanation to right opinion if the meaning is
that we should form an opinion of
the way in which something differs
from the thing the proposal is ridiculous?
All right, so he's rejecting this third one.
How so? Well, you're supposed to acquire
a right opinion of the differences,
which distinguish one thing from another
when we've already a right opinion of them.
And so we go round and round.
The revolution of the scytal, or pestle, or
any other rotary machine in the same circles is
as nothing compared with such a requirement.
And he says, it's like the
blind leading the blind.
So, the third definition of an
explanation for something in order
to provide knowledge is distinguishing
that thing from everything else.
What differentiates it from everything else?
Well, to understand how a thing
differs from everything else,
you have to understand what the thing is.
But the whole point is to describe what
the thing is by showing its differences.
So, that's the circular reasoning
that Socrates is pointing out.
How can I know what's unique about
a thing until I know what it is?
But the whole point of finding out what's
unique about it is to discover what it is.
So, in the end, they leave it off as that they
can't find a proper definition of knowledge.
On page 343, the right hand column, Socrates
says, but however it would be foolish
when we are asking what is knowledge that
the reply should only be right opinion
with knowledge of difference
or of anything else.
And so Theaetetus's knowledge is neither
sensation nor true opinion nor yet definition
and explanation accompanying
and added to true opinion.
I suppose not.
So, that's, it leaves off without
defining what knowledge is.
And Plato scholars point out that in this
dialogue, Plato never depicts Socrates talking
about his theory of the absolute ideas.
In other dialogues, that's what knowledge is,
being able to relate the many manifestations
and the material world of the eternal spiritual
absolute idea of that thing, yet perfect essence
of all of the material things and experiences,
all of those [inaudible] forms
are the sources of knowledge.
And they are rooted in the idea of
the good, which we'll be talking
about when we get to Plato's cave allegory.
But in this dialogue, he doesn't mention it.
So, one of the lessons Plato might
have been trying to express is
that if you don't introduce his
theory of the absolute ideas
that we saw [inaudible] talk about,
then you can't have knowledge.
So, I'll leave it at that.
That is Exam Number 2, Part B,
Question 5 and Plato's Theaetetus.
Why does Socrates reject the definition
of knowledge as justified true belief
or true opinion combined with reason.
