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INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
Some
dialogues of Plato are of so various a character that their relation
to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of
certainty. The Theaetetus, like the Parmenides, has points of
similarity both with his earlier and his later writings. The
perfection of style, the humour, the dramatic interest, the
complexity of structure, the fertility of illustration, the shifting
of the points of view, are characteristic of his best period of
authorship. The vain search, the negative conclusion, the figure of
the midwives, the constant profession of ignorance on the part of
Socrates, also bear the stamp of the early dialogues, in which the
original Socrates is not yet Platonized. Had we no other indications,
we should be disposed to range the Theaetetus with the Apology and
the Phaedrus, and perhaps even with the Protagoras and the Laches.But
when we pass from the style to an examination of the subject, we
trace a connection with the later rather than with the earlier
dialogues. In the first place there is the connexion, indicated by
Plato himself at the end of the dialogue, with the Sophist, to which
in many respects the Theaetetus is so little akin. (1) The same
persons reappear, including the younger Socrates, whose name is just
mentioned in the Theaetetus; (2) the theory of rest, which Socrates
has declined to consider, is resumed by the Eleatic Stranger; (3)
there is a similar allusion in both dialogues to the meeting of
Parmenides and Socrates (Theaet., Soph.); and (4) the inquiry into
not-being in the Sophist supplements the question of false opinion
which is raised in the Theaetetus. (Compare also Theaet. and Soph.
for parallel turns of thought.) Secondly, the later date of the
dialogue is confirmed by the absence of the doctrine of recollection
and of any doctrine of ideas except that which derives them from
generalization and from reflection of the mind upon itself. The
general character of the Theaetetus is dialectical, and there are
traces of the same Megarian influences which appear in the
Parmenides, and which later writers, in their matter of fact way,
have explained by the residence of Plato at Megara. Socrates
disclaims the character of a professional eristic, and also, with a
sort of ironical admiration, expresses his inability to attain the
Megarian precision in the use of terms. Yet he too employs a similar
sophistical skill in overturning every conceivable theory of
knowledge.
