Philosophy Compass - 2016 - Thaler - Judgment Logos and Knowledge in Plato S Theaetetus

Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.
12311
Judgment, Logos, and Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus

Naly Thaler*
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Abstract
In this second installment on the Theaetetus, I discuss Theaetetus’ second and third definitions of
knowledge, namely, ‘true judgment’ and then ‘true judgment with the addition of an account’. I offer
a brief description of Socrates’ intricate examination of these suggestions, concentrating especially on
the discussion of false judgment and that of the so-called ‘Dream Theory’. I then proceed to map
different lines of interpretation for these passages that have been offered by scholars writing in the last
40 years.
The previous piece on the Theaetetus1 examined Socrates’ strategy for refuting the thesis that
knowledge is perception. The final argument against that thesis introduced a distinction
between perceptual properties such as colors and sounds that are conveyed to the soul through
each of the distinct bodily senses and properties such as ‘being’, ‘difference’, and ‘number’,
which were said to be grasped by the soul acting through itself. It then claimed that since it is
impossible to grasp the truth about anything without grasping its being, and since one cannot
know something without grasping its truth, the soul’s proper faculties are needed to attain
knowledge, and hence knowledge cannot be identified with mere bodily sensation.2 The
conclusion of this argument against Theaetetus’ first definition thus naturally leads to his second
one: since it is agreed that the activity of the soul when engaged with itself is called ‘judgment’,
and as it was shown that knowledge of something presupposes a grasp of its truth, Theaetetus
now suggests that knowledge simply is true judgment (187b).
But the examination of this suggestion takes a seemingly unexpected route. Instead
of inquiring into the possible merits or shortcomings of true judgment as a candidate for
knowledge, Socrates instead spends most of the discussion in an ultimately unsuccessful
attempt to formulate a coherent account of false judgment. This attempt consists in the
presentation of three alternative descriptions of false judgment, each of which ultimately
proves incoherent (188a-191a), and a subsequent introduction of two psychological models
intended to relieve the aforementioned incoherence (191c-200d). Only after the failure of
these two models is true judgment itself brought under scrutiny, and its claim to the status
of knowledge summarily refuted using a relatively straightforward argument (200d-201c).
Since the puzzles regarding false judgment clearly rest on some highly contentious premises, a
proper interpretation of this section of the Theaetetus requires the reader not only to identify the
faulty premises but also to determine the rationale for positing them in the first place. For our
purposes, it would be profitable to trace three basic lines of interpretation in the literature
regarding these questions. The first line takes the faulty premises to be those of other thinkers
whom Plato is interested in refuting. The second claims that the premises are ones to which
Plato himself adheres, and that the resulting puzzles are sincere expressions of Plato’s
bewilderment at the time of writing the Theaetetus about the possibility of false judgment.
The third line attributes the faulty premises neither to unnamed opponents nor to Plato
himself, but rather takes their justification to stem from some present feature of Socrates’
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Judgment, Logos, and Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus 247
conversation with Theaetetus. In my discussion of false belief, I shall begin with a summary
description of the three puzzles and then provide examples of how each line of interpreta-
tion attempts to make sense of them according to its own assumptions.3 I shall then describe
the two models of mind brought in to relieve the difficulties and proceed to discuss different
readings of them under the three lines of interpretation.
1. Three Puzzles Regarding False Judgment

The first puzzle (187e-188c) builds on the claim that in regard to any object, we either know
it or are ignorant of it. This, Socrates claims, allows for four theoretically possible cases of
false judgment: false judgment is either a case of (1) judging that something we know is
something else we know; (2) judging that something we do not know is something else
we do not know; (3) judging that something we know is something we do not know; or
(4) judging that something we do not know is something we know. But, Socrates claims,
since each of these scenarios seems to be impossible (apparently, since knowing an object
is not only a necessary condition for producing any judgment about it but also precludes
making any mistake about it), we must conclude that false belief does not occur.
The failure of the attempt to describe false judging using the dichotomy of knowing and
not knowing leads to the second construal (188c-189b) which identifies false judging with
the idea of ‘thinking what is not, either about one of the things that are, or by itself’ (188d).
This suggestion is discarded by means of an argument that invokes an analogy between
judging and perceiving: Socrates argues that seeing or hearing ‘what is not’ amounts to
seeing or hearing nothing (not seeing or hearing even one thing) and that seeing or hearing
nothing is tantamount to not seeing and not hearing. In just the same way, he claims,
‘judging what is not’ is tantamount to judging nothing at all (not judging even one thing),
and judging nothing amounts to making no judgment.
Following the failure of the construal of false judging as a case of judging what is not, Socrates
makes his third suggestion (189b-190e): false judging is a case where one replaces in his thought
one of the things that are with another of the things that are (a phenomenon which Socrates
terms ‘other-judging’). This new suggestion is then attacked by means of an analysis of the
concept of ‘judging’. Socrates secures Theaetetus’ agreement that judging is expressing to
oneself an explicit statement as a resolution of some internal inquiry. When this description
of judging is coupled with the third construal of false judgment as a case of judging one thing
to be another, false judgment comes to be seen as a case of saying to oneself ‘x is something other
than x’, a statement whose falsity, Socrates claims, is too glaring to be attributed to anyone,
under any condition.
Interpreters such as Cornford and Chappell who hold the view that these puzzles constitute
Plato’s attack on some other system of philosophy tend to construe the faulty premises as
representing an empiricist conception of knowledge, one that does not acknowledge the
existence of Platonic forms. Thus, Chappell (158-162) claims that the puzzles result from the
naïve empiricist idea that judgments are mere associations of images in one’s mind which result
from past encounters with reality. This limited view of the nature of judgment and of thought,
he claims, thwarts any attempt to provide a coherent account of predication. And since
predication is necessary for false judgment, the empiricist conception of knowledge cannot
account for its occurrence. Since, according to Chappell, Plato takes some grasp of forms to
be necessary for predication, the argument is ultimately intended to show that Plato’s own
unique metaphysical machinery is necessary for accounting for a basic feature of human speech.
The second line of interpretation claims that at the heart of the puzzles stand philosophical
problems that Plato himself was ill-equipped to solve. A common candidate for such a
© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

248 Judgment, Logos, and Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus
philosophical conundrum in the present part of the Theaetetus is a confusion between two ways
of reporting one and the same judgment. As we saw, the third puzzle presents false judging as a
case of stating to oneself that one thing is another, for example, saying to oneself that an odd
number is an even number. But this report of the content of a false judgment implies paradox
only if one understands it as a verbatim report of the judgment in question, according to which
the judger actually says to himself ‘an odd number is an even number’. But if one is aware of the
distinction between this construal of ‘saying to oneself that an odd number is even’ and the
construal which merely attributes to the judger the thought about x, that ‘x is even’, where x
is some number that happens to be odd, the third formulation of false judgments becomes
innocuous. Since the distinction between these two ways of reporting a judgment (usually
described using the de dicto/de re terminology) is a modern one and seems to have been
unfamiliar to Plato,4 the resulting puzzle can genuinely be treated as one that left him perplexed.
Some notable instances of this interpretation of the ‘other judging’ paradox are MacDowell
215-216 and Bostock 161-176.
The third interpretation takes the puzzles to stem from some feature of Socrates’ discus-
sion with Theaetetus. An example of this reading is Fine’s (1979b) claim that the puzzles
are a direct result of Theaetetus’ basic identification of knowledge with true judgment.
The reason why Theaetetus’ second definition leads to the puzzles about false judgment is
that without a distinction between true judgment and knowledge, any successful
(i.e., true) grasp of some object would have to count as knowledge of it. Once we add
the assumption (which Fine attributes to Plato) that having knowledge of X precludes any
error about it, the first and third puzzle emerge.5
2. The Two Models of Mind

As a result of the inability to provide a coherent description of what false judging amounts to,
Socrates illustrates a model of the psychic mechanism responsible for acquiring knowledge
and producing judgments which, he claims, can alleviate the difficulties. The gist of this model
(discussed in 190e-196c), which likens the mind to a wax tablet, is to provide a way to bypass
the difficulty introduced in the first puzzle. There, it was agreed that one cannot mistake some-
thing one knows either for (a) something else one knows or for (b) something one doesn’t
know. By distinguishing between (1) imprints of objects which exists in the soul’s receptive
medium or ‘wax’ (imprinted there by previous perception of these objects, and identified
as ‘knowledge’), (2) the present perception of a given object, and (3) the act (identified
with judging) of matching a present perception with its proper memory imprint, the wax tablet
model provides an explanation of how false judgment is in fact possible: Case (a) now becomes
possible when one knows x (has an imprint of x in one’s mind) and falsely matches to that
imprint a perceived object y, which she also knows. Case (b) becomes possible if one who
knows x falsely relates to that imprint the perception of object y with which she is unfamiliar.
But the model is soon faulted due to its inability to account for mistakes that do not involve
perception, such as judging that 5 + 7 = 11. In these sorts of cases, we seem to be forced back to
the original puzzle about how it is possible to think that something we know (the sum of 5 + 7)
is some other thing we know (the number 11). In order to solve this difficulty, Socrates suggests
a different model for construing knowledge and judgment: this model likens the soul to an
aviary, and things which we know to birds f lying about in it. According to Socrates, we can
illuminate what happens in cases where we make a mistake about an item of knowledge we
already possess by thinking about the difference between having a bird caged in an aviary and
actually holding it in our hand. The idea is that when we make a mistaken judgment such as
‘5 + 7 = 11’, we reach into our mental aviary with the intention of catching a 12 bird (our

knowledge of 12), but in fact end up getting hold of an 11 bird (our knowledge of 11). This
allegedly explains how we can have at our disposal all the requisite information or ‘knowledge’
for making a true judgment, and yet commit an error. Knowledge, it seems can come in both
active and latent form: holding a knowledge-bird in one’s hand constitutes knowledge of the
active kind, whereas merely possessing a knowledge-bird in one’s mental aviary constitutes
knowledge of the latent kind. And while it is impossible to produce a false judgment when one’s
knowledge is active (or, to use the aviary image, when it is in one’s hand), it is possible to make a
mistake about a latent or inactive item of knowledge (one which is merely in our possession).
This model too is quickly shown to be inadequate. As we saw, the model presupposes that
the mistaken judgment about the sum of 5 + 7 involves getting hold of the wrong bird, i.e., that
of 11 instead of that of 12, in one’s hand. But ‘grasping the 11 bird in hand’ is another way of
saying that one activates one’s knowledge of 11, and under the aviary model, this is incompat-
ible with making a mistake about that number. It turns out that the aviary model requires us to
accept that we make mistakes by utilizing knowledge, an idea which, we are expected us to see,
smacks of contradiction.
The significance of the two puzzles can again be unpacked according to one of the
aforementioned three lines of interpretation. For proponents of the ‘unnamed opponent
view’, the wax block and aviary represent examples of the sort of limited cognitive
models available to those who, unlike Plato himself, subscribe to a radical materialist
ontology. Gokhan Adalier, for example, claims that both models fail to account for
mistakes about numbers since they form part of a materialistic world view that lacks the
resources to deal with judgments regarding what are in fact (according to Plato) intelligi-
ble entities. Thus, the claim that judging 5 and 7 to be 11 is equivalent to the absurd
claim that 12 is 11, which led to dissatisfaction with the wax block, relies on ignoring
the difference between a mere ‘sum’ of parts and a ‘whole’ or form to which these parts
belong, and in which they participate (a distinction Adalier finds in the Phaedo and
Parmenides). Once the distinction is observed, arithmetical mistakes of the kind in question
can be innocuously construed as cases where one falsely relates a certain sum of units with
the wrong intelligible object. And the aviary’s failure is due to its reluctance to posit
numbers themselves as the objects of our arithmetical judgments, relying instead on the
idea that it is ‘pieces of knowledge’ of numbers, i.e., mental entities, which are the objects
of these judgments. This leads to construing mistakes about numbers as mistakes about
our own knowledge of them (to be precise, Adalier treats each knowledge-bird as the
capacity for thinking about each number).
According to the second line of interpretation which views this section of the Theaetetus as
revelatory of Plato’s own philosophical difficulties, the philosophical problem Plato is
attempting to come to grips with is how one object can be presented to the mind under
different conceptions. According to Bostock (193-200), for example, the wax model shows
that Plato has the right intuitions about what is needed to solve the ‘other judging’ paradox:
by distinguishing the perception of x from the memory imprint or knowledge of x, the
model provides two distinct ways of ‘accessing’ the same object in the context of a single
judgment, thus preventing true judgments from becoming mere tautologies, and false ones
from becoming mere absurdities. But in the case of judgments about objects such as
numbers, where access through perception is unavailable, Plato has only the notion of
‘knowing’ with which to describe the judger’s relation to each of the objects signified by
the two terms that figure in the judgment. Since, according to Bostock, at the time of
writing the Theaetetus, Plato did not construe knowledge of an object along the same lines
as making a judgment about it (knowing that x is f ), but rather, as a two-way relation
analogous to perception (knowing x), he lacked the resources to explain how such an

intelligible object can be grasped (‘known’) by the mind under different conceptions. And
this immediately leads to the paradox that making a false judgment about a concept is in
effect to commit an error that is fully apparent to oneself.
According to the third line of interpretation, the wax tablet and aviary are both attempts to
deal with a problem that stems directly from Theaetetus’ present identification of knowledge
with true judgment. Since Socrates and Theaetetus had previously agreed that knowledge
and perception are distinct epistemic states, Socrates is able to incorporate this distinction in
the wax model and so distinguish between two alternative epistemic routes which the mind
has to one and the same object (allowing us to grasp it and yet commit mistakes about it). This
accounts for the wax model’s success in dealing with false judgments in the realm of perception.
But, according to Burnyeat, the aviary model shows that yet another epistemic route (distinct
from knowledge) is required for cases where the false judgment to be explained has no percep-
tual element. The obvious candidate for such a route should have been true judgment, which
would have allowed one to have an object before one’s mind and could at the same time have
been a potential cause of error about that very object. But since Theaetetus’ present thesis
identifies true judgment with knowledge, he cannot make use of this alternative and is
consequently saddled with the problem of explaining the seemingly paradoxical situation in
which one makes a mistake about an object as a result of having knowledge of it.6
3. The Examination of True Judgment

Following the realization that they have no adequate conception of false judgment, Socrates
and Theaetetus turn to examine true judgment directly, in order to discover whether it might
nonetheless prove identical with knowledge (200d-201c). Socrates then shows that the two are
in fact distinct by invoking the case of jurors who reach a correct verdict in court regarding
disputed events and contrasting their cognitive state with what would count as knowledge.
Unfortunately, Socrates provides two incompatible reasons what knowledge of the events in
question would entail and why the juror’s cognitive state is inferior to it. At first, he invokes
the mandated brevity of the litigants’ arguments and claims that since they cannot possibly
amount to teaching the jury about the events in question, the jury’s correct judgment must be
inferior to knowledge (which presumably results from teaching). This seems to entail that the
obstacle between the jurors and knowledge is contingent, and derived from practical limita-
tions. But he then goes on to cite the jury’s reliance on hearsay, in contrast with an eye-witness’
direct acquaintance with the facts, as what accounts for the inferiority of their cognitive state in
comparison to knowledge. This seems to imply that the obstacle is a matter of principle: no
matter how much instruction jurors might receive, they would still remain in an inferior
cognitive state compared with that of an eye-witness, and only the latter can legitimately count
as knowledge ( for discussions of the incompatibility in question, see Bostock 200-201,
Burnyeat 124-7, and Chappell 196)
By implying that observable, contingent, facts can be objects of knowledge, this argument has
naturally lead some scholars to ask whether Plato has changed his mind ( from the time of
writing the middle dialogues) about what the proper objects of knowledge are. For the view
that a contradiction does exist see, for example, McDowell (227-8). For the claim that the
argument need only imply that perception is sometimes a necessary condition for knowledge,
see Bostock 200-201.
4. Knowledge and Logos

After Socrates’ refutation of the claim that knowledge is true judgment, Theaetetus introduces
his third and final definition: knowledge is true judgment with the addition of a ‘logos’. As in the

examination of Theaetetus’ first definition of knowledge, here too Socrates attempts to f lesh
out this suggestion by associating it with a novel metaphysical theory which he examines and
then dismisses as faulty. After the collapse of the theory, Socrates takes up the definition on
its own terms (specifically, Socrates inquires what the meaning of the term ‘logos’ might be)
and shows that he and Theaetetus are unable to unpack it in a coherent manner. In what
follows, I shall provide an outline of the third part of the dialogue and then proceed to discuss
different interpretations that have been suggested for it.
According to the dream theory, all things can be subsumed under two basic ontological
categories, that of complexes and that of elements. Elements, according to the theory, are simple
entities, whereas complexes are ultimately composed of the simple elements. This distinction
gains epistemological significance due to two added claims, that in order to know x, one must
be in possession of a logos of x, and that providing a logos of x requires naming its elemental parts
(the theory defines a logos as a combination of names). Since only complexes have such parts, the
theory holds that only complexes can be known. Elements, on the other hand, have only a
proprietary name but no logos and are hence taken to be unknowable, but merely perceptible.
While Socrates professes sympathy for the basic tenets of Theaetetus’ definition (‘for what
could knowledge be apart from logos and true judgment?’ 202d), he expresses discontent with
the theory’s claim that whereas complexes can be known, the elements that figure in their
knowledge-conveying accounts cannot. In order to expose the problem with the theory’s
epistemological dichotomy, Socrates introduces a puzzle regarding the relation between a com-
plex and its elements: is a the syllable SO (which is taken as a paradigm of complex objects) (a)
identical to the letters S and O (taken as paradigms for elements) or (b) some additional entity
(literally, ‘form’) that exists over and above these letters? We then discover that each of these
two alternative ways of construing the syllable contradicts the theory’s epistemological dichot-
omy: if the syllable is construed according to (a), the argument shows that knowing it must be
nothing over and above knowing both its letters; and since in order to know both letters one
must know each individually, it turns out that if syllables are knowable, letters must be as well.
Alternatively, if the syllable is taken according to (b), as something different from its constituent
letters, Socrates’ argument (which is somewhat complex and cannot be analyzed in detail here)
shows that it must lack parts altogether and must then be as unknowable as each of its letters.
5. The Three Sense of Logos

Once the fault in the theory’s epistemological dichotomy is exposed, Socrates turns to
examine what sense the term ‘logos’ must have in Theaetetus’ definition of knowledge as
‘true judgment with an account’ for it to prove viable. He proposes three alternatives: the
theory might be speaking of logos in the sense of (1) a verbal statement, (2) a specification
of elements, or (3) the specification of some feature which distinguishes the object under
consideration from all others. Sense (1) is immediately repudiated on account of the fact that
anyone, not just those possessing knowledge, can express their true opinion in a statement.7
Sense (2), which corresponds to that used in the dream theory, is rejected because of the fact
that one may be able to correctly specify the constituent letters of a given syllable as it appears
in one word (the syllable ‘The’ as it appear in the name ‘Theaetetus’), and yet fail to recog-
nize that very same syllable as it appears in a different word (the same syllable in the
name ‘Theodorus’). What the scenario shows is that the ability to analyze a complex into
its letters cannot guarantee that one in fact has knowledge of that complex. Sense (3) is
rejected on the following grounds: the ability to provide a unique sign that distinguishes
an object from all other objects, which according to Sense (3) transforms a true judgment
of that object into knowledge, seems to be required for the true judgment to be about that

object in the first place, rather than about anything else. Now, an added account of the
distinguishing mark can amount to either a true judgment of that mark, or to knowledge
of it. If the first, then the addition of a logos turns out to add nothing at all to the original
true judgment. If the second, the definition becomes circular, since its formula includes
the term ‘knowledge’. The dialogue thus ends in aporia, and we leave the scene with Socrates
heading off to the porch of the King Archon after declaring that the conversation has left
Theaetetus both better equipped to continue the search for the definition of knowledge,
and humbler than he was previous to it.
Any discussion of Socrates’ objection to the Dream Theory requires us to ask what sorts of
things the complexes and elements are, and what the theory means by the term ‘logos’. There
are two competing lines of interpretations regarding these related issues. The first, originally
proposed by Gilbert Ryle (1960, 1990), is that the theory is an ancient precursor of the 20th
century logical atomism.8 Ryle claims that the complexes in question are facts and that the
elements of which complexes are composed are the objects which these facts somehow
comprise. Accordingly, Ryle takes the logos which, according to the theory, applies only to
complexes, to mean a statement of the fact in question, and he takes the theory’s claim about
the elements being merely ‘nameable’ as a recognition of the idea that an object is not the sort
of thing that can be stated, but merely named. According to Ryle’s reading, the moral of the
Socrates’ refutation is that if one starts with a naïve conception of the composition of statements,
treating them, as the theory does, as mere combinations of names, one will be unable to
attribute to statements any properties that are not attributable to their components. What is
ultimately needed to resolve the puzzle is an improved conception of the structure of proposi-
tions (of the kind Plato himself presents in the Sophist), which takes into account the categorical
difference between subjects and predicates.
Ryle’s reading has found few supporters in recent times. More prevalent interpretations of
the dream theory take logos to mean ‘definition’ rather than ‘statement’.9 Among such
readings, some take the complexes defined by a logos as material objects, and the elements
of which complexes are composed as basic material ‘stuffs’. Other interpretations take
complexes to be concepts and the elements the highest genera that figure in their definition.
Both types of reading take the theory’s epistemological dichotomy as a commitment to the
idea that knowledge-revealing analyses must ultimately reach unanalysable and hence
unknowable termina.
Among interpreters who take complexes to be concepts, Gail Fine (1979a) has argued that
Plato wants his readers to notice that Socrates’ argument against the theory, which uses the
letter/syllable paradigm and depends on the theory’s disregard for the notion of order.10
Once the notion of order or arrangement is taken into account, the syllable can be
conceived as something that is composed of its letters, yet nevertheless not simply identical
to them.11 In fact, Fine’s interpretation takes the notion of ‘order’ one step further and
claims that it also shows how knowledge of simple elements can be attained: one can provide
a logos of an element not by analyzing it, but by mentioning the ordered relations that exist
between it and other elements. Such relations constitute an ordered system which provides
the necessary epistemological basis for knowledge of individual complex objects composed
of elements. Fine connects her interpretation to the three senses of logos by the idea that the
second sense (analysis into elements) is the one which is relevant for complexes, whereas the
third one (a distinguishing mark) is the one that describes the sort of account which can be
had of elements.
Other interpreters who construe complexes as concepts disagree with Fine’s claim that the
gist of Plato’s criticism is that in order for there to be knowledge, accounts must (and can) reach
‘all the way down’. According to Bostock’s reading (202-267), the third part of the Theaetetus

ref lects Plato’s genuine concern about the epistemological implications of the fact that defini-
tions seem to reach undefinable ultimate terms. According to Bostock, at the time of writing
the Theaetetus, Plato’s solution to this problem is to accept that the ultimate terms cannot in fact
receive a definition, but to argue that this need not preclude them from being known. In the
case of elements (Platonic forms, according to Bostock), knowledge can be had by direct
acquaintance with no need for a propositional grasp. Bostock finds possible support for this line
of thought in Socrates’ discussion of the third sense of logos: under the proper understanding, the
circularity resulting from this last sense disappears, since distinguishing marks are not, in fact,
required for having true beliefs about concepts. The distinguishing mark can then safely
characterize one’s grasp of the highest and simplest forms, about which there is no definition
but only direct mental apprehension.
Other commentators who read logos in the sense of ‘analysis’ emphasize the theory’s claim
that elements are perceptible and thus take it to have strong materialistic (rather
than conceptual) overtones. They consequently construe complexes as concrete objects and
the simple elements as material stuffs. David Sedley, for example, has argued (153-168) that
the critique of the theory should be read as a Platonic attack on pre-Socratic conceptions of
knowledge, according to which it involves a reductive analysis that reaches some familiar
(i.e., perceptible) material stuffs. By having Socrates criticize the theory which construes
elements as given to perception, Plato shows that knowledge does not require a ‘downward’
analysis which ends with the ultimate physical constituents of reality, but rather an ‘upward’
analysis which is conceptual in nature. Sedley takes the second and third senses of logos as
indicating more and more sophisticated conceptions of what knowledge requires. He construes
the second sense as alluding not to the Dream Theory’s notion of elements, but rather to
Timaeus style mathematical principles of physical reality (169-174). And he takes the third sense
as a Platonic allusion (one which, as per Sedley’s general interpretative strategy, goes over
Socrates’ head) to the method of collection and division which distinguishes concepts from each
other (174-178).
6. Some Concluding Remarks About the Theaetetus

In the two installments on the Theaetetus, I have tried to provide a rough mapping of various
lines of interpretation of the dialogue. From a bird’s eye view of the terrain, we can see that
interpreters who provide a unified interpretation of the Theaetetus tend to be those who read
it through the lens of theories they find in the middle-period dialogues. Such interpretations
claim that the problems Socrates and Theaetetus encounter are not real problems for Plato,
but only for thinkers (such as empiricists or materialists)12 who do not subscribe to his middle
period metaphysics and epistemology. On the other hand, interpreters who see the Theaetetus
as a ref lection of Plato’s genuine attempts to come to grips with certain issues that occupied
him at the time of the dialogue’s composition, usually take some of the arguments as revising
Plato’s middle period metaphysical and epistemological views (most notably in the first part
where scholars claim to find a recantation of an earlier claim that the perceptual world cannot
be an object of knowledge). Such interpretations also tend to offer less unified readings of the
dialogue as a whole. This means that in the ‘logical space’ of possible interpretations of the
dialogue, there is still room for ‘positive’ unified interpretations of the Theaetetus that do not take
it as a vehicle for conveying a message familiar from the middle-period dialogues. Such interpre-
tations may find in the dialogue a consistent theory which constitutes a revision of Plato’s earlier
philosophy.13 But another avenue which remains open and unexplored is one which while
taking the Theaetetus to contain a positive and consistent theory of knowledge, construes any
conf licts between it and the views familiar to us from the middle dialogues as stemming from

an imprecise or even faulty construal of these earlier views (which are often couched in
metaphor and expressed in hyperbole). According to this line of interpretation, a Unitarian
interpretation of Plato’s various claims about knowledge in different dialogues can be achieved,
not by forcing the arguments of the Theaetetus into the framework of our previous interpretation
of the middle dialogues, but rather by revising the interpretation of those dialogues in light of
our findings about the Theaetetus.
Short Biography
Naly Thaler received his Ph.D from Princeton University, and currently an assistant professor at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are Ancient Philosophy, especially
Plato and Aristotle. He has published in the journal of the History of Philosophy, Oxford Stud-
ies in Ancient Philosophy, and Phronesis.
Notes
* Correspondence to: Department of Philosophy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. Email: naly.
thaler@mail.huji.ac.il
1
‘Perception and Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus’, Philosophy Compass [insert issue number]
2
For a summary of the various lines of interpretation of this argument, see ‘Perception and Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus’.
3
It is important to note that each of these ‘lines of interpretation’ includes views that are highly divergent from each other.
My reason for grouping these divergent interpretations together is mainly for ease of exposition.
4
But see Adalier, p. 10, for an objection to this idea.
5
There is an issue in the interpretation of these passages that cuts across the various groups of readings I have outlined. The
issue is whether Plato here restricts the problem of false judgment to false identity statements, or whether the problem is of a
more general scope. Some commentators who take the problem to be conﬁned to identity statements are Cornford,
McDowell, and Burnyeat. Those who think the problem is not restricted to identity statements but includes other forms
of predication are Fine (1979b), Bostock, and Chappell.
6
According to Burnyeat (116-119), Theaetetus’ attempt to save the model with the suggestion (199e) that perhaps there are
also ‘birds of ignorance’ ﬂying around in the aviary and that mistakes such as judging that 5 + 7 = 11 can be accounted for by
the idea that one gets hold of a bird of ignorance of 11 should be understood as an ultimately unsuccessful (due to the fact that
‘true judgment’ is unavailable) attempt to add precisely such an alternative cognitive state.
7
The explicit rejection of this sense of logos is often used as an argument against Ryle’s interpretation.
8
Ryle’s reading is taken up by Chappell who argues that the logical atomists in question subscribe to a naïve view about the
nature of thought, according to which it is wholly reducible to sense data.
9
Burnyeat (145) suggests that the text is purposely ambiguous between the two senses.
10
Note that such a reading depends on taking the theory’s claim that a logos is a combination of names in a highly minimal
sense, as a mere list.
11
The idea that the argument against horn (2) ignores the notion of order is very common in the literature and can be found
among others in McDowell, Bostock, Burnyeat, McCabe, and Harte. For a recent claim that the argument has nothing to do
with the order in which the letters are arranged, see Thaler.
12
Or, in the case of Sedley, for the pre-Platonic Socrates.
13
One recent move in this direction that of Gill, who construes the Theaetetus as ultimately conveying the revisionist idea
that knowledge comprises perception, true judgment, and an account together.
Work Cited
Adalier, G. ‘The Case of Theaetetus.’ Phronesis 46 (2001): 1–37.
Bostock, D. Plato’s Theaetetus. Oxford, Clarendon, 1988.
Burnyeat, M. The Theaetetus of Platowith a revised translation by M. J. Levett. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990.

Chappell, T. Reading Plato’s Theaetetus. Indianapolis, Hackett, 2005.

Cornford, F. M. Plato’s Theory of Knowledge. Routledge, London, 1935.
Fine, G. J. ‘False Belief in the Theaetetus.’ Phronesis 24 (1979a): 70–80.
—— ‘Knowledge and Logos in the Theaetetus.’ Philosophical Review 88 (1979b): 366–97.
Gill, M. L. Philosophos: Plato’s Missing Dialogue. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012.
Harte, V. Plato on Parts and Wholes. Clarendon, Oxford, 2002.
McCabe, M. M. Plato’s Individuals. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
McDowell, J. Plato: Theaetetus. Clarendon, Oxford, 1973.
Ryle, G., ‘Letters and Syllables in Plato’, Philosophical Review Vol. 69, No. (1960): 431–451.
—— ‘Logical Atomism in Plato’s Theaetetus.’ Phronesis 35 (1990): 21–46.
Sedley, D. The Midwife of Platonism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004.
Thaler, N. ‘Taking the Syllable Apart: the Theaetetus on Elements and Knowledge.’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
41 (2012): 201–228.


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Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.

Judgment, Logos, and Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus

© 2016 The Author(s)

1. Three Puzzles Regarding False Judgment

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

2. The Two Models of Mind

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

3. The Examination of True Judgment

4. Knowledge and Logos

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

5. The Three Sense of Logos

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

6. Some Concluding Remarks About the Theaetetus

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

Chappell, T. Reading Plato’s Theaetetus. Indianapolis, Hackett, 2005.

© 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass (2016)11, 246–255, 10.1111/phc3.12311

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