28. A Grasp of Reality (I)

Google Images

Hamlet:
"To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there's the rub."

Hamlet (III, i, 65-68)

How many times have you dragged the images you saw in your dreams into the day’s reality? Where would you set the border between reality and imagination?

[adapted from New Success at First Certificate,

by Robert O’Neill, Michael Duckworth & Kathy Gude]

Early one morning, more than a hundred years ago, an American inventor called Elias Howe finally fell asleep. He had been working all night on the design of a sewing-machine but he had run into a very difficult problem: it seemed impossible to get the thread to run smoothly around the needle.

Despite his exhaustion, Howe slept badly. He tossed and turned. Then he had a nightmare. He dreamt that he had been captured by a tribe of terrible savages whose king threatened to kill and eat him unless he could build a perfect sewing-machine. When he tried to do so, Howe ran into the same problem as before. The thread kept getting caught around the needle. The king flew into a rage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe. They advanced towards him with their spears raised. But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There was a hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke from the nightmare with a start, realizing that he had just found the solution to the problem. Instead of trying to get the thread to run around the needle, he should make it run through a small hole in the centre of the needle. This was the simple idea that finally enabled Howe to design and build the first really practical sewing-machine.

Google Images

Elias Howe was far from being unique in finding the answer to his problem in this way. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light bulb, said that his best ideas came to him in dreams. So did the great physicist, Albert Einstein. Charlotte Bronte also drew on her dreams in writing Jane Eyre. The composer, Igor Stravinsky, once said the only way he could solve his problems in musical composition was 'to sleep on them'.

To appreciate the value of dreams, you have to understand what happens when you are asleep. Even then, a part of your mind is still working. This unconscious, but still active, part digests your experiences and goes to work on the problems you have had during the day. It stores all sorts of information and details which you may have forgotten or never have really noticed. It is only when you fall asleep that this part of the brain can send messages to the part you use when you are awake. However, the unconscious part expresses itself through its own logic and its own language. It uses strange images which the conscious part may not understand at first. This is why dreams are sometimes called 'secret messages to ourselves'.

Salvador Dali, Sewing Machine with Umbrella
(Google Images)

Choose the best answer.

1.   According to the passage, Elias Howe was

A the first person we know of who solved problems in his sleep.

B much more hard-working than other inventors.

C the first person to design a sewing-machine that really worked.

D the only person at the time who appreciated the value of dreams.

2.   The problem Howe was trying to solve was

A what kind of thread to use.

B how to design a needle which would not break.

C where to put the needle.

D how to stop the thread from getting caught around the needle.

3.  The solution to the problem came from something

A the king said to Howe.

B Howe remembered about another sewing-machine.

C Howe noticed about the soldiers' weapons.

D one of the soldiers was wearing.

Salvador Dali, Dreams
(Google Images)

4.  Thomas Edison is mentioned because

A he also tried to invent a sewing-machine.

B he got some of his ideas from dreams.

C he was one of Howe's friends.

D he also had difficulty in falling asleep.

5.   Dreams are sometimes called 'secret messages to ourselves' because

A strange images are used to communicate ideas.

B we can never understand the real meaning.

C images are used which have no meaning.

D only specially trained people can understand them.

  

Decide upon your own answers and only then go on.

27. A Happy Ending, the Story Goes (II)

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As you should know by now, there is more than one way of telling a story. Indeed, faithfully rendering each and every sentence by only modifying tenses and reference is adequate for narrating facts, but a dialogue going on about making a point is far from accepting a neutral position. In such cases, the speakers’ interventions must be interpreted (see Peter Adamson’s “I Know, because the Caged Bird Sings” I and II to have a clear idea about the importance of rendering Platonic dialogues into intelligible accounts).

Now, I’d like to believe that at least you read the script – the ten-minute script – which in fact meant hours of re-interpreting. The question is, how does such a script differ from the action-packed blockbusters of today? But wait: there will be more questions at the end of the reported account. 

So, without laying total and unquestionable claim that my variant is the only one, I’m offering a suggested report on part 3 of 12 Angry Men in which I stuck to the meaning of the Jurors’ performance as far as the text allowed me to. You will find all the interpreted stretches in bold:

#8 assures the other jurors that he doesn’t have any brilliant ideas as to why he voted not guilty, and that he only knows as much as they do, since – according to the testimony – the boy looks guilty. He goes on to say that he probably is, but that, during the six days that he sat in court listening while the evidence built up, he began to get a peculiar feeling about the trial precisely because everybody sounded too positive. He then explains his view that, in fact, nothing was that positive, and that there are a lot of questions he would like to ask which perhaps wouldn’t mean anything; nevertheless, he adds, in the trial he began to get the feeling that the defence council wasn’t conducting a thorough enough cross examination, and that that makes him doubt about whether he didn’t let too many little things go by.

#10 interrupts #8 expressing his irritation at the little things #8 mentions, and crossly points out that when those fellows don’t ask questions, it’s because they know the answers already.

Google Images

#8 replies by asking whether they don’t think that it is also possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, which, in his view, is possible. #7 playfully adds that #8’s remark reminds him of his own brother-in-law’s attested stupidity on one occasion in the past.

#8 speaks again about the feelings those days of trial arouses in him and says that he keeps putting himself in the kid’s place. He assures them that, as far as he is concerned, he would have asked for another lawyer, and hypothesizes that, if he were on trial for his life, he would want his lawyer to tear the prosecution witnesses to shreds, or at least try to. He goes on to argue that, in this particular case, there was one alleged eyewitness to the killing, and someone else who claimed he heard the killing and that the boy ran afterwards. He concludes that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence, but actually those two witnesses were the entire case for the prosecution. When he reflects upon the possibility of the witnesses being wrong, he is interrupted by #12, who finds it hard to question the witnesses’ being wrong for, if it were so, there would be no point in having witnesses at all.
#8 answers back by repeating his question, and #12 is even more intrigued because he doesn’t quite get the meaning of #8’s argument: he knows that those people sat on the stand under oath. #8 insists that they’re only people, and people make mistakes, so he repeats his question, but #12 answers, irritated, that he doesn’t think so. #8 retorts by using a sharp, cutting, concluding question about #12’s presumably true knowledge that people don’t make mistakes, and #12 wearily invites him to consider that nobody could know a thing like that, since that isn’t an exact science. It was exactly what #8 wanted to hear, for he makes his point by admitting that #12 is right in saying that it isn’t.

Google Images: Jury Duty. Art

#3 intervenes, inviting everybody to get to the point, and inquires about the switch knife that was found in the old man’s chest. #2 interrupts #3 by pointing out that there are some jurors who haven’t talked yet and inquires about them all going in order, which he finds advisable. Irritated, #3 hastily assures him that they will all have a chance to talk – only to make him be quiet while he speaks. He goes on to ask about the knife that the boy admitted buying on the night of the killing, in this way taking the opportunity to ironically describe him as ‘fine’ and ‘upright’. When he invites everybody to talk about it, #8 readily agrees and, in turn, while inviting everybody to get together and have another look at the knife, he quickly adds that he would like to see it again, so he suggests this to #1, the Foreman.

One of the jurors protests in the name of all those present, for he doesn’t understand why they have to see it again, since they already saw it once. Going towards the door, #1 replies that the gentleman has a right to see exhibits in evidence and asks for it when the attendant appears. The latter approves and goes for the knife, which he quickly brings in.

Addressing #8, #4 intervenes by asking whether they too share his opinion about the knife and the way it was bought being strong evidence.

#8 agrees, and #4 starts his line of argument while inviting everybody to consider the facts one at a time. He states them one by one, the first being that the boy admitted going out of the house on the night of the murder at eight o’clock after being slapped several times by his father. #6 corrects him about the boy’s statement, as he didn’t say “slapped”, but “punched”, and firmly adds that there’s a difference between a slap and a punch.

#4 resumes his speech by introducing #6’s correction and passes on to the second argument, which refers to the boy’s next action of going directly to a neighbourhood junk shop where he bought one of those switch blade knives. #4 goes on to reinforce his conviction that the knife the boy bought wasn’t what can be called an ordinary knife because it had a very unusual carved handle and blade. He then adds that the storekeeper who sold it to him said it was the only one of its kind he had ever had in stock. #4 then refers to the third argument by saying that the boy admitted meeting some friends of his in front of a tavern about 8:45 and asks for confirmation, which #8 earnestly offers and #3 wilfully hastens to retort.

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#4 goes on to speak about the boy’s third statement, namely, that he talked to his friends for about an hour, leaving them at 9:45 and that, during this time, they saw the switch knife. The fourth argument #4 presents is the identification in court of the death weapon as that very same knife.  Finally, #4 mentions the fifth argument about the boy's alleged actions, visually, that he arrived home at about ten o’clock, and emphasizes that it is exactly at this point that the stories offered by the State and the boy begin to diverge slightly, since he claims that he went to a movie at about 11:30, returning home at 3:10 to find his father dead and himself arrested.#8 interrupts adding that the boy also claims that the two detectives arrested him throwing him down half a flight of stairs. #4 goes on with his argument inquiring about what happened to the switch knife, about which the boy claims that it fell through a hole in his pocket on the way to the movies, sometime between 11:30 and 3:10, and that he never saw it again. He addresses the other jurors expressing his complete disbelief about what he considers a tall tale, as he thinks it’s quite clear that the boy never went to the movies that night because no one in the house saw him go out at 11:30, no one at the theatre identified him, and he couldn’t even remember the names of the pictures he saw. He then puts forward his own variant of what actually happened by presenting the facts as he saw them, namely, that the boy stayed at home, had another fight with his father, stabbed him to death and left the house at ten minutes after 12; that he even remembered to wipe the knife clean of fingerprints. While changing his tone from complete self assurance to unveiled irony, he addresses #8 by referring to an implausible scenario of the boy losing the knife through a hole in his pocket only to be picked up by someone else off the street, who then went to the boy’s house and stabbed his father.

26. A Happy Ending, the Story Goes (I)

Well, this is the promised script and there are the twelve jurors. It’s for you to watch the video again, assign an identity to the jurors, and pay close attention to what they say and how they say it. Believe it or not, the captions are only partially faithful to what is actually being said, so you might say you’re in for a surprise; you'd better take a piece of paper and, while keeping the distance in time marked by the rules of the use of tenses and reference, transfer the information to Indirect Speech but keep the introductory verbs in the present tense. Why? Well, because it means a lot for the effect it has on the intensity of the debate itself. It’ll take you a lot less than it took me to transcribe it, I’m sure, and in the end the advantages will outweigh the trouble you take (it would be only fair for you to take the trouble!).

#8

<<All right, I don’t have anything brilliant. I only know as much as you do. According to the testimony, the boy looks guilty. Maybe he is. I sat there in court for six days listening while the evidence built up. Everybody sounded so positive, you know, I began to get a peculiar feeling about this trial. I mean, nothing is that positive. There are a lot of questions I’d have liked to ask. I don’t know, maybe they wouldn’t mean anything, but...I began to get the feeling that the defence council wasn’t conducting a thorough enough cross examination. I don’t know, he let too many little things go by, little things.

<<What little things? Listen, when these fellows don’t ask questions, it’s because they know the answers already. They think they could be hurt!

<<Maybe, but it’s also possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, isn’t it? I mean, it’s possible.

<<You sound like you met my brother in law once.

#5

<<I kept putting myself in the kid’s place. I’d have asked for another lawyer, I think. I mean, if I was on trial for my life, I’d want my lawyer to tear the prosecution witnesses to shreds, or at least try to. Look, there was one alleged eyewitness to this killing someone else claims he heard the killing and that the boy ran afterwards...there was a lot of circumstantial evidence. But actually those two witnesses were the entire case for the prosecution. Supposing they’re wrong?-

<<What do you mean, supposing they’re wrong? What’s the point of having witnesses at all?

<< Could they be wrong?

<<What are you trying to say? Those people sat on the stand under oath.

#10

<< They’re only people. People make mistakes. Could they be wrong?

<<Well, no. I don’t think so.

<<Do you know so?

<<Come on, nobody can know a thing like that. This isn’t an exact science.

<<That’s right, it isn’t.

<<OK, let’s get to the point. What about the switch knife they found in the old man’s chest?

<<Wait a minute, there’s some people who people haven’t talked yet. Shouldn’t we go in order?

<<They’ll get a chance to talk. Be quiet a second, will ya? What about the knife this fine, upright boy admitted buying the night of the killing? Let’s talk about it.

#4

<<All right. Let’s get it in here and look at it. I’d like to see it again. Mr Foreman?

<<We all saw what it looks like. Why do we have to see it again?

<<The gentleman has a right to see exhibits in evidence. Say, could you bring us the knife?

<<The knife? Sure.

#7

<<Thank you.

<<The knife and the way it was bought is strong evidence, don’t you think?

<<I do.

<<Good. Now suppose we take these facts one at a time. One: The boy admitted leaving out of the house on the night of the murder at eight o’clock at night after being slapped several times by his father.

<<No, he didn’t say “slapped”. He said “punched”. There’s a difference between a slap and a punch.

<<After being hit several times by his father. Two: He went directly to a neighbourhood junk shop where he bought one of those...

<<Switch knives.

#1

<<Switch-blade knives. This wasn’t what you call an ordinary knife. It had a very unusual carved handle and blade. The storekeeper who sold it to him said it was the only one of its kind he had ever had in stock. Three: He met some friends of his in front of a tavern about 8:45. Am I right so far?

<<Yes, you are.

<<You bet he is.

#2

<<He talked to his friends for about an hour, leaving them at 9:45. During this time, they saw the switch knife. Four: They identified the death weapon in court as that very same knife.  Five: He arrived home at about ten o’clock. Now,this is where the stories offered by the State and the boy diverge slightly. He claims that he went to a movie at about 11:30, returning home at 3:10 to find his father dead and himself arrested.

<<He also claims that the two detectives arrested him throwing him down a half a flight of stairs.  

#3

<<Now what happened to the switch knife? He claims that it fell through a hole in his pocket on the way to the movies, sometime between 11:30 and 3:10, and that he never saw it again. Now, there is a tale, gentlemen. I think it’s quite clear that the boy never went to the movies that night. No one in the house saw him go out at 11:30, no one at the theatre identified him, he couldn’t even remember the names of the pictures he saw. What actually happened is this. The boy stayed home, had another fight with his father, stabbed him to death and left the house at ten minutes after 12. He even remembered to wipe the knife clean of fingerprints. Now, youre trying to tell me that this knife really fell through a hole in the boy’s pocket, someone picked it up off the street, went to the boy’s house and stabbed his father with it just to test its sharpness?

<<No, I just say it’s possible that the boy lost his knife and that somebody else stabbed his father with a similar knife, it’s just possible.

#6

<<Take a look at this knife. It’s a very unusual knife. I’ve never seen one like it. Neither had the storekeeper who sold it to the boy. Aren’t you asking us to accept a pretty incredible coincidence?

<<I’m just saying a coincidence is possible.

<<And I say it’s not possible.

<<Where did that come from?

<<It’s the same knife!

<<What do you think you’re doing?

<<Where did you get it?

<<I went out walking for a couple of hours last night. I walked through the boy’s neighbourhood. I bought that at a little pawn shop just two blocks from the boy’s house. It cost six dollars.

#11

<<It’s against the law to buy or sell switchblade knives.

<<That’s right, I broke the law.

<<You pulled a real bright trick. Now supposing you tell me what it proves. Maybe there are ten knives like that, so what?

<<Maybe there are!

<<What does it mean? You found another knife like it. What’s that? The discovery of the age or something?

<<You’re asking us to believe that somebody else did the stabbing with exactly the same kind of knife?

<<The odds are a million to one.

<<It’s possible!

<<But not very probable.

#12

<<OK, fellas. Let’s take our seats. No point standing around all over the place.

<<You know, it’s interesting that he’d find a knife exactly like the one the boy bought.

<<What’s interesting about it? Interesting!

<<I don’t know, I just thought it was interesting.

<<But there’s still eleven of us still thinking that he’s guilty.

<<Right. What do you think you’re gonna accomplish? You’re not gonna change anybody’s mind. So, if you want to be stubborn and hang this jury, go ahead. The kid’ll be tried again and found guilty, as sure as he’s born.

<<You’re probably right.

<< So what are you gonna do? You know, we can be here all night.

<<It’s only one night. A boy may die.

<< Well why don’t we set up house here? Someone send for a pinochle deck and we’ll just sweat the whole thing out right here.

<<I don’t think you ought to joke about it.

<<What do you want me to do about it?

<<Oh, listen, I don’t see why all this stuff about the knife has got to do with anything. Somebody saw the kid stab his father. What more do we need? You guys can talk the ears right off my head, you know what I mean? I got three garages going to pot. So let’s get done and get out of here.

#9

<<The knife is very important to the district attorney. He spent a whole day...

<<He’s a 15^th assistant or something. What does he know about it?

<<Hey, let’s hold it down. These side arguments are only slowing us up. Well, what about it? You’re the only one.

<<I have a proposition to make to all of you. I’m going to call for another vote. I want you eleven men to vote by secret written ballot. I’ll abstain. With eleven votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone. We’ll take in a guilty verdict to the judge right now. But if anyone votes not guilty, we’ll stay here and talk it out. That’s it, if you want to try it, I’m ready.

<<All right, let’s do it the hard way.

<<Yeah, that sounds fair Everyone agreed? Anyone doesn’t agree? OK, pass these along.

<<Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Magritte, The Blank Signature

Not guilty. Guilty.

<<Boy, how do you like that?!

<<Another chap flips his wings!

<<All right, who was it, come on, I wanna know.

<<Excuse me, this was a secret ballot. We all agreed on that, no? If the gentleman wants it to remain secret...

<<Secret? What do you mean, secret? There are no secrets in a jury room. I know who it was. Brother, you really are something. You sit here, vote guilty like the rest of us, then some golden voiced preacher starts tearing your poor heart out about some underprivileged kid just couldn’t help becoming a murderer and you change your vote. If that isn’t the most sickening – why don’t you drop a quarter in his collection box?

<<Oh, now, just wait a m- listen, you can’t talk to me like that. Who do you think you are?

<<Calm down, calm down, it doesn’t matter, he’s very excitable. Sit down.

<<Excitable?! You bet I’m excitable, we’re trying to put a guilty man in the chair, where he belongs. Someone starts telling us fairy tales and we’re listening! What made you change your vote?

<<He didn’t change his vote. I did.

<<Oh, fine.

<<I knew it.

<<Would you like me to tell you why?

<<No, I wouldn’t like you to tell me why.

<<I’d like to make it clear anyway, if you don’t mind.

<<Do we have to listen to this?

<<The man wants to talk.

<<Thank you. This gentleman has been standing alone against us. He doesn’t say the boy is not guilty, he just isn’t sure. It’s not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others. So he gambled for support and I gave it to him. I respect his motives. The boy on trial is probably guilty, but I want to hear more. Right now the vote is ten to two. I’m talking here! You have no right to leave this room!

<<He can’t hear you. He never will. Let’s sit down.

 You’ll find a suggested variant in the following post, that’s for sure.
(Source of images: Google Images)

25. Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Words almost certainly spoken by Socrates
(Google Images)

It hasn’t been very easy, I admit, to find a sequel to Plato’s dialogue the Theaetetus: more than two thousand five hundred years old, still valid in all its complexity, steadily studied, bringing solidity to all of Western philosophy – sufficient reasons to regard it as awe-inspiring.

Those of you who have accompanied Peter Adamson in his plea for profound thinking must have already learnt a bit more about how knowledge relates to true belief. Needless to say, the very mention of there being true belief implies the possibility of false belief always beguiling Man into jumping to statements. But let’s stick to the line of argument in the Theaetetus, and consider this for a moment: in order for someone to say they know something, they have to assume that there is a truth independent of any perceiver. It goes without saying that that someone may be you, and may be me.

Wikipedia Images

We are by now floating deep in the nebula of relativism, and the conclusion is crystal clear: without a general account of false belief, there is hardly the case that we would be able to grasp knowledge by invoking some middle ground. As Peter Adamson concludes, knowledge must have something to do with true belief; in the example he gives about the case of the jury, he tackles a facet which is by all standards important: jurors are people like you or me; while in court listening to both parties, they come under the influence of the lawyers’ performance. Now, what lawyers can (or, rather, usually) do is use the oratorical art of persuasion in order to convince the jury of a person’s guilt or, for that matter, innocence. Through the lawyers’ skilful management of language, the jury comes to have a true belief – but not knowledge – originating in the discourse performed by the two professionals. Now, come to think of it: if verdicts depended only on what the defense and the prosecution lawyers say, then a person’s fate would be the result of his or her lawyer’s mastery in using oratory.

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I’ll keep Professor Adamson’s tentative statement in mind: “Maybe knowledge is true belief plus something else as well... something the jurors are lacking, but which you would have if you were, say, an eye-witness at the murder scene and know that the accused man is innocent.”

And so it goes that it is evidence which helps us – you, me, or a jury – to tell how close we can get to knowledge, a topic ranking high among topical subjects wherever there is a judicial system willing to seek the truth about a person’s innocence. What better entry could I add but one about a classic?

24. Nothing Could Be Further from the Truth (II)

Raphael, The School of Athens

“I Know, Because the Caged Bird Sings: Plato’s Theaetetus.”  
Part Two.

Script for podcast (aired Feb 28 2011) by Peter Adamson

Raphael's Plato

‘“Now, I know what you’re thinking: this will be easy. Just point to a thermometer, which tells us an objective fact about how cold the air is. But not so fast. Firstly, Protagoras can agree with your kids that whatever the thermometer says, it’s up to each of us to say whether it is cold or warm for us. Secondly, he can point out that the thermometer is itself something you perceive. If it seems to you that the thermometer reads, say, 30 degrees, then it’s true for you that the thermometer reads 30 degrees. It’s true for you simply because you perceive it to be the case. To insist on there being an absolute truth about the reading of the thermometer is to assume that there is a truth independent of any perceiver, and that’s what Protagoras denies: man is the measure of all things, right?

Socrates

“But Socrates has a couple of other tricks up his sleeve. He starts with abuse: wouldn’t it be just as true to say that a pig or a baboon is the measure of all things? Abuse is always satisfying, of course, but this argument doesn’t carry much weight. Fortunately he has more philosophically satisfying points to make too. For instance, on this “man is the measure” doctrine, there’d be no point consulting experts: why pay to go to the doctor if you are just as good a measure as the doctor is? If it seems to you that taking aspirin will cure that nasty bout of appendicitis, then it’s true for you! This sounds like a theory that will reduce the life expectancy of its adherents - reason enough to reject it. Closely related is an objection about predicting the future: if I expect to recover from my illness, then it will be true for me that I will recover; if it then later seems to me that I’m still sick, then it will seem to me that I have not recovered, and so it will be true for me that I didn’t recover. It’s hard to see how both of these could be the case.

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“But Socrates’ most interesting objection illustrates a classic, perennially useful philosophical maneuver. Whenever you’re presented with a bold new theory – especially a skeptical theory – ask whether the theory could be true on its own terms. For example, if someone says that nothing is true, you can ask him whether this claim is itself true. Or if someone says that language is meaningless, you can ask him how he is able to convey this idea in a sentence. In the same way, Socrates suggests that Protagoras’ relativism doctrine is self-refuting. For, even if Protagoras agrees with the doctrine, Socrates does not. Thus it will be true for Socrates that Protagoras’ doctrine is false. Indeed, since this follows from Protagoras’ doctrine, it will even be true for Protagoras that for Socrates the doctrine is false. Thus Protagoras is bound by his own doctrine to admit that his doctrine is false. But maybe this trick is a bit too tricky: even if Protagoras has to admit that the doctrine is false for Socrates, he doesn’t have to admit that it’s false in itself or really false. Remember, according to him, there’s no such thing as something’s just really being false or true. There is only something’s being false or true to you, to me, to Socrates.

“Before we get any dizzier, let’s leave relativism behind and move on to another major theme of this dialogue: the possibility of false belief. This theme arises when Theaetetus accepts that knowledge is not after all perception, and makes another suggestion. Perhaps knowledge is having a true belief. After all, when I know something I have a belief about it, and obviously it can’t be a false belief. So why not say I know something when I have a true belief about it? All well and good, says Socrates, but if we want to uphold this definition we need to understand how it could be that some beliefs are true, and others false. And here we will run afoul of those pesky sophists again. Some sophists suggested that it is impossible to say or believe anything false - in which case everything is just a matter of persuasion. This challenge appears in several Platonic dialogues; we’ve already seen it arising in the Euthydemus. But the Theaetetus is again probably the most famous case. The argument here for the sophistical view is rather reminiscent of Meno’s paradox, which we looked at last time. It goes like this: either I know something or I don’t. If I know about it, then I won’t make a mistake about it, thanks to my knowledge; but if I don’t know about it, then I can’t think about it, so I won’t be able to make a mistake then either. In other words, I’ll have either perfect knowledge of each thing, or no knowledge of it at all, and in neither case will I get things wrong. So, it’s impossible to make a mistake, to believe anything false.

Google Images

“As with Meno’s paradox, it looks like the way out is to say that there is some middle ground, where I know or grasp something well enough to make a mistake about it, but not so well that I am immune to error. Socrates presents two analogies to suggest how this could work. First, he says, imagine that your memory is like a wax tablet - the kind they used to write on in ancient Greece. When you perceive something, that’s like a stamp making an impression in the wax of your mind. Some people have tough, dirty wax and are slow on the uptake; others have fluid wax and get impressions quickly, but lose them just as fast. Others have wax which is ideally suited: easily stamped, but also good at holding the impressions. Quite a nice image of how memory works, really. Ok, so now for false judgment: that would happen when there is a mismatch between something you perceive and an existing impression in the wax of your memory. For instance, I think I am watching a silent film starring Buster Keaton, but actually I’m confused: that lovable fellow on the screen is in fact Charlie Chaplin, and I’m matching the visual image to the wrong stamped impression in my wax tablet. As Socrates says, it’s like putting your right foot into your left shoe.

Theaetetus

“Notice that this solves the sophistical dilemma: I can make a mistake about something because in a way I know it, and in a way I don’t. I know who Buster Keaton is, because I must have got acquainted with him to have an impression of him in my memory. But this doesn’t guarantee that I’ll be error-free in identifying people as Buster Keaton. This is a compelling analogy, and for once the proposal isn’t exactly rejected in the dialogue. Rather, the characters realize that even if it works for cases of mistaken identity in perception, there are many cases of false judgment where it will not help. For instance, what is going on when I add seven and five and get eleven? There’s nothing here about impressions being made on our memory by perception, and yet I’ve still made a mistake. So Socrates produces another image in place of the wax tablet. Imagine, he says, that your soul is like an aviary, a birdcage, with lots of birds flying around in it, each of which represents a piece of knowledge. Whenever you’ve learned something, you’ve acquired a bird and put it into your aviary. What happens when you add five to seven and get eleven is that you reach into your aviary and pull out the eleven bird instead of the twelve bird. Again, your knowledge of eleven actually enables you to make the mistake, the way your knowledge of Buster Keaton enabled you to mistake Charlie Chaplin for him.

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“But Socrates and Theaetetus decide that this model too is problematic. It means that when you make a mistake, it is precisely by virtue of knowing that you get things wrong. It is, paradoxically, because of your knowledge of eleven that you are able to have a false belief about five plus seven. The indefatigable Theaetetus has another suggestion, though: what if your aviary contains birds representing ignorance, as well as birds representing knowledge? Then when you make a mistake you’ve just grabbed the wrong kind of bird. But that ruins the whole point, which was to explain how we can know something just enough to make a mistake about it, without knowing it so well that we are immune to error.

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“So where does all that leave us? Right back where we started: without a general account of false belief, but still thinking that maybe knowledge is the same thing as true belief. Ah, but it isn’t, says Socrates. Just consider the case of a jury: they might be persuaded by some fancy lawyer that a certain man is innocent of a crime. And the man really is innocent. But we wouldn’t say that the jury knows, since they only believe this because the lawyer was slick enough to persuade them. Thus they have a true belief, but not knowledge. So much for that definition. Yet Theaetetus still feels - and today’s epistemologists tend to agree - that knowledge must have something to do with true belief. Maybe knowledge is true belief plus something else as well... something the jurors are lacking, but which you would have if you were, say, an eye-witness at the murder and know that the accused man is innocent.

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“It’s no easy task to say what that would be. As I say, modern-day epistemologists are still struggling with the question of how knowledge relates to true belief. In so doing, they are taking up a challenge first thrown down here in the Theaetetus. For the rest of the dialogue, Socrates and Theaetetus explore the possibility that some kind of “rational account” - a logos, that favorite word of Heraclitus - is what you’d need to add to true belief to render it into knowledge. As we expect by now, they don’t manage to make this work, and yet we do learn a bit more about knowledge, in particular how it does and does not relate to giving an account of yourself when you believe something. This last part of the dialogue is sufficiently complicated that giving an account of it would be no easy matter, and I’m just about out of time anyway. So I’ll close there for now. But Plato’s attitude towards belief and knowledge will continue to take center stage in the next few episodes. In two weeks, I’ll finally be looking at Plato’s theory of Forms, and trying to discover whether postulating Forms could help us understand what knowledge is. But next time, we’ll have a return appearance by my colleague MM McCabe, who will chat with me about Plato’s views on knowledge. So don’t make the mistake of missing next week’s episode of the History of Philosophy, without any gaps.”’

James P. Morse, Reality and the Mind
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