Theaetetus (dialogue)

Plato’s Theaetetus, composed in the early to mid-4th century BCE, is a foundational text in epistemology. Like many of his works, Plato presents it as a dialogue, featuring Socrates, the young mathematician Theaetetus, and his teacher Theodorus of Cyrene. The conversation tests three definitions of episteme (knowledge): knowledge as perception, knowledge as true judgment, and knowledge as true judgment accompanied by an account. Each definition proves unsatisfactory, and the dialogue ends in aporia—a state of puzzlement—as Socrates departs to face the preliminary hearing for his trial on charges of impiety.

Date and setting

The work influenced Platonism from the Skeptical Academy in the 3rd century BCE through Neoplatonism in the 6th century CE. In modern times, it gained renewed attention because Edmund Gettier used it to challenge the traditional definition of knowledge as “justified true belief.” The dialogue is framed by a brief scene: Euclid of Megara and his friend Terpsion encounter a wounded Theaetetus returning from an Athenian battle at Corinth, from which he apparently died. Euclid recounts that he possesses a written record of a conversation between Socrates and a much younger Theaetetus, which a slave then reads aloud to them.

Scholars disagree on which battle at Corinth is referenced. It was long assumed to be the battle of 369 BCE, when Theaetetus would have been in his late forties.

More recently, Debra Nails has argued for a different battle in 391 BCE, placing Theaetetus in his late twenties. Stylistically, the Theaetetus resembles Plato’s earlier dialogues (such as the Euthyphro or Crito) in that Socrates offers no firm views of his own and the inquiry ends without resolution. Yet it also shares traits with later, more complex works like the Parmenides, Phaedrus, and the narrative sequels Sophist and Statesman.

Characters of the dialogue

The characters include Euclid of Megara, founder of the Megarian school and a student of Socrates; Terpsion, a friend of Euclid otherwise unknown except in later fables; Socrates, then about seventy years old, just before his trial; Theodorus, a mathematician from Cyrene (in modern Libya) who studied incommensurable quantities and, according to Diogenes Laertius, may have taught Plato; and Theaetetus, an Athenian mathematician credited in Euclid’s Elements with methods for irrational lengths and the proof of five regular convex polyhedra. The dialogue notes that Theaetetus resembled Socrates in his snub nose and bulging eyes. Socrates, Theaetetus, and Theodorus reappear the next day in the Sophist, joined by an unnamed Eleatic stranger and a boy also named Socrates.

Outline

The narrative opens in a wrestling school. Socrates asks Theodorus about promising geometry students. Theodorus hesitates to praise the boy Theaetetus too highly, then describes him as a homely young Socrates look-alike. They spot Theaetetus rubbing down with oil, and Theodorus notes his intelligence, virility, and orphaned state (his inheritance squandered by trustees).

Socrates declares that Theaetetus will benefit from discovering what he does not know. Socrates explains his own method by comparing it to his mother’s midwifery: he can tell when a young man is struggling to give birth to a thought, and his philosophical work is to assist in that labor. The conversation ends with Socrates announcing he must go to court to face a criminal indictment.