This volume of essays is something of a sequel to two earlier volumes by the same editors, Plato's Sophist Revisited (2013) and Plato's Statesman Revisited (2018), all three from De Gruyter. It consists of sixteen papers, most of which were presented at a conference in Spain in 2018, on many different passages and aspects of the Theaetetus. Briefly, it covers Plato's self-references (D. Sedley); Socrates’ role and methods (M. Narcy); the dialogue's methodology and refutation (G.E. Marcos de Pinotti, Á. Vallejo Campos); flux, perception, self-refutation, the first-person perspective on knowledge, and education (F. Lisi, Bossi, F. Trabattoni, M. Boeri, X. Ibáñez-Puig); soul, thinking in the Aviary and dialogue (Robinson, C. Araújo, F.J. Gonzalez); the dialogue's hints towards a positive understanding of knowledge (F. Ferrari); its connections to other Socratics, especially Antisthenes (C. Márisco); and its reception in the New Academy (H. Tarrant) and in the late antique and medieval periods (M. Curnis). All the papers cover much more than this summary suggests, and I learned something from nearly all of them. The result is eclectic, which is to be expected from this eclectic group of scholars. It is mostly a welcome addition to the already vast literature.
Sedley's paper compiles a list of passages from several dialogues in which Plato seems to refer to himself. Then we turn to the Theaetetus with Narcy, who takes up Socrates’ role and methods. Narcy identifies 185e3–9 as a turning point in the dialogue. Here Socrates claims that the soul considers some things through the senses but others ‘alone and through itself’ (p. 12). Socrates says that this is what he himself thinks and he wants Theaetetus to agree to. Narcy considers this incompatible with Socrates’ sincerely disavowing knowledge and concludes that here he abandons the pretext of ignorance and begins straightforward teaching. According to Narcy, then, at 185e Socrates takes off his midwife mask and openly assumes the role of teacher.
Narcy has a point that the claim about the soul is more Platonic than Socratic. The sharp distinction between the sensible and the noetic, though perhaps inchoate in the early dialogues, only comes out clearly in the middle dialogues – especially in the Republic, as Narcy notes. So the content of the claim at 185e would be out of place in a Socratic dialogue. But pace Narcy, the passage is consistent with Socrates’ midwifery as he describes it. It does not require that Socrates knows anything or that he is teaching from knowledge. Nothing about midwifery prevents him from expressing philosophical opinions, even those of Plato, still less from expertly leading Theaetetus in an examination of the opinions of Theaetetus and other thinkers. And despite what Narcy suggests, Socrates does not say he knows that the soul considers some things by itself. He only says that this moi edokei (185e8).
Several other papers also discuss Socrates’ maieutic method. Vallejo Campos explains Socrates’ philosophical barrenness by means of the dialogue's focus on refutation (p. 36). The Theaetetus’ refutation of Protagorean and Heraclitean views, he argues, serves to buttress Plato's positive views. This is right as far as it goes. But Socrates’ maieutic art has two parts: one involves extracting and testing (not just refuting) a theory, and the other involves finding a suitable partner for a young man when he does not make progress from his association with Socrates. Moreover, what Vallejo Campos and several other contributors to this volume miss is that, while it is true that Plato makes a point of Socrates’ barrenness in wisdom and theories, he equally makes a point of his knowledge of maieutics, repeatedly calling it a technê and even saying it is something he knows (epistamai: 161b3). Vallejo Campos acknowledges this last point indirectly in his excellent discussion of Aristotle, who also portrays refutation as a technê.
Let us stick with maieutics for the moment. Gonzalez argues that in the Theaetetus dialectic, i.e. philosophical method leading to knowledge, is dialogical, involving a discussion between two or more people. This idea (not to be identified with the idea that one cannot think by oneself) is an interesting and fruitful one. But Gonzalez goes on to suggest that dialectic should be identified with Socratic midwifery. He notices that at 179a–b Socrates claims that Protagoras must accept that only the wise man is the measure. How can Socrates claim this if he himself is ignorant about what knowledge is? Gonzalez's answer is that what provides the measure of another's wisdom is ‘dialogue itself’ (p. 181). Suitably qualified, this answer is right. But it misses two things: first, that Socrates claims to have knowledge of a part of dialectic: the ability to extract and test theories from others. And second, Socrates pointedly lacks the ability to produce logoi, a necessary part of dialectic. Moreover, it misses one of the Theaetetus’ messages: that knowing how to extract and test views does not produce knowledge and is not genuine wisdom.
Wisdom is the hidden theme of Ibáñez-Puig's paper, just as it is a hidden theme of the Theaetetus itself. Ibáñez-Puig identifies ‘two models of philosophers’ in the dialogue: one represented by those who investigate natural and heavenly phenomena, and those (like Socrates) who deal with people, but know ‘nothing of Heaven and Earth’ (p. 135). He goes on to suggest that a true practitioner of dialectic will subsume both conceptions into something that combines and supersedes the two (pp. 135–6). Ibáñez-Puig argues that for Plato education is important for the development of a young man's character. More interestingly, he adds that one lesson of the dialogue is that Theodorus’ training in mathematics is not enough for his students to become ‘real philosophers and good men’. He lacks knowledge about how to deal with political affairs, and he thinks that what is needed here is mainly the ability to persuade. Theodorus’ hope, on this reading, is that, by combining his knowledge of geometry, astronomy etc. with the abilities of a Protagoras, a full life is possible. This seems wrong, as the dialogue's digression contrasts the small sad lives of orators with those of true philosophers, who are different from both Protagoras and Socrates.
Moving now to perception, Lisi, after a brief but excellent overview of the positions taken in the last century, makes a compelling case that Plato accepts the theory of perception at 155d–160e. I was less convinced by his arguments that the views in question are not also Protagorean or Heraclitean (pp. 56–60). And Lisi does not raise the possibility that Márisco discusses in her paper (pp. 210–14): that Cyrenaic or Megarian ideas are referred to here. I also did not understand why he thinks 153e3–6, which alludes to thinkers who only believe in what they can grasp in their hands and exclude actions, processes and everything invisible, cannot be ascribed to any Heraclitean or any materialist (pp. 59–60). A plausible way to make sense of the evidence is to say that Plato appropriated and modified some theories he did not invent but accepted himself, as he does in the Timaeus. Lisi does not consider this option.
Staying with perception, Bossi thinks that Socrates intentionally ignores what Theaetetus likely meant when he claimed that knowledge is perception: that as geometers do with their diagrams, knowing something requires that one is aware of what one knows. Put another way, Socrates illicitly restricts awareness in general to sense-perception. Bossi argues that, therefore, Socrates does not refute the theory Theaetetus proposed. There is some truth in this point, and Aristotle says more than once that the ancients did not distinguish thinking from perceiving, apparently positing a single mode of awareness. However, Plato seems aware of the difference when he distinguishes the two and expands the discussion to include doxa, both in the Protagorean section of the dialogue and later. Bossi's paper indirectly raises some interesting questions about cognitive capacities. Her intriguing suggestion leads one to ask what role perception plays in the process of acquiring knowledge after it is rejected as an answer to the question of what knowledge is. Perception is surprisingly not laid to rest after the refutation at 186, but reappears in the wax block, in the jury scene and in the dream theory. But Bossi does not explore these connections. She also does not seem to notice that to say that knowledge is awareness of what one knows is just as circular as Theaetetus’ earlier idea that knowledge is just geometry, astronomy, the arts etc. Socrates responds that this is like saying that clay is the brickmaker's clay, the potter's clay etc. (146c–7b). Theaetetus would have to refine his answer by adding either that it is awareness of anything (in which case his answer would be equivalent to Protagoras’) or specify just what kind of awareness it is or just what awareness it is of. But Bossi's main idea is interesting and deserves further exploration.
Ferrari's paper is one of the volume's highlights. It underlines that the Theaetetus is aporetic because of Socrates’ maieutic method, which examines theories and people, and not because it lacks Platonic Forms. Its sequel, the Sophist, provides a positive answer to the questions of knowledge, whereas the Theaetetus only explores. The fact that Plato does not bring in the Forms is a consequence of this method, and it is the method that determines that the characters will not find what knowledge is. Notwithstanding this, Ferrari argues that the dialogue provides us with paths towards a solution. He identifies two positive outcomes of the final discussion of knowledge as a true belief with a logos: the object must be unified but cannot be so simple as not to admit several different predicates. Márisco's interesting paper also sheds light on this final part of the dialogue, particularly as regards Antisthenes.
Readers whose knowledge of the New Academy, like mine, is less than it should be will profit from Tarrant's discussion of the dialogue's reception. He tallies and compares some of the dialogue's epistemological vocabulary (involving questioning, doubt, hesitation and enquiry) to some of Plato's works and the dubia and spuria, especially Alcibiades II. His work indicates that the Theaetetus’ focus on personal viewpoints in its Protagoras section influenced later Academic thought. Tarrant's analysis also suggests, though not explicitly, the epistemological importance of the Cratylus, a dialogue not usually discussed in treatments of Plato's epistemology.
The volume contains several typos and English infelicities, but these only marred my understanding in a few places. The bibliography is also incomplete, with all the references unique to Ferrari's paper missing. More disappointing are the missing indexes of subjects and names. This and the exorbitant price (both of which can be laid at the feet of De Gruyter) will put some readers off. But overall, this is a worthwhile volume.
