Andrea Meibos
Phil 201H
7/11/98

Socrates asks that Theaetetus undertake to define knowledge, and also explains the comparison of himself to a midwife in that he brings out people's ideas, throwing away the bad and selecting the good. They start out by using Protagoras' definition that knowledge is perception, so that a thing is how it appears to the viewers. If everyone's perception is valid, however, why do we need to be taught by others, and why do we argue? Also, if perception means seeing, knowledge cannot be perception because one knows something even if they're not currently seeing it. If Protagoras practices his teachings, he must acknowledge as true the opinion of those who think that his ideas concerning Truth are false, leading to a contradiction. Wisdom is defined as having true opinions, and there must be those who are wiser and those more ignorant among people. It is then these wiser people who are "the measure of all things" as opposed to every man. Going back to perception, they claim that perception is through the eyes and ears, not with. In addition to this physical perception, perhaps there is another, spiritual perception, having to do with the mind of the soul where it thinks by carrying on a discourse with itself. True judgement without account is also not perception or knowlege, but if this is true no one can know something they have not observed, and abstract things can therefore not be known. True judgement with account, however, can only be knowledge if account is defined as being able to distinguish a thing from anyone else, thus having an awareness of it's form. This leads to the circular definition "correct belief with knowledge of a differentness", and there the discourse ends.