Perception and the First Personal Character of Knowledge

Willie Costello The Theaetetus is an extensive examination of a single conceptknowledgeand more than half the dialogue is dedicated to discussing a single definition of that concept: Theaetetus first definition that knowledge is perception. Why, however, is perception at all attractive or plausible as a definition of knowledge? Prima facie there seem to be many kinds of non-perceptible knowledge, including the very subjects Theaetetus himself studiesgeometry, astronomy, and arithmetic. What, then, motivates his first definition, and why is its refutation not swift and direct? My answer to these questions will consist of two parts: first, a close reading of the dialogues preliminaries, which will bring out the background assumptions that inform the first definition; second, an analysis of the overall argument that follows, especially the elaboration and refutation of the Secret Doctrine and the argument at 184-186. Through this discussion, I will show that the aim of the first definition is to capture the essential first personal character of knowledge, which is ultimately shown to consist not in perception but, rather, in judgment. I. FRAMING THE QUESTION To understand the intuition behind Theaetetus first definition, we must first understand the precise meaning of the question which it is answering, and for this purpose it is helpful to look back to the discussion at 146c-147c. There Socrates first asks the question What is knowledge? and Theaetetus responds with a list of the various theoretical and practical kinds of expertisegeometry, astronomy, music, and arithmetic as examples of the former, the crafts of cobbling and carpentry as examples of the latter (146c-e, with 145d1). Socrates, however, promptly dismisses this answer, saying:

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But that is not what you were asked, Theaetetus. You were not asked to say what one may have knowledge of, or how many branches of knowledge there are. It was not with any idea of counting these up that the question was asked; we wanted to know what knowledge itself is. (146e) 1 Socrates accusation is that an enumeration of the branches of knowledge does nothing to address the question of what knowledge is; indeed, he goes as far as to say that a man who is ignorant of what knowledge is will not understand what cobbling [knowledge of shoes] is, or any other craft (147b). Thus if we are to understand what Plato is really after, we must explain why Theaetetus list of examples is of no help in getting there. However, as several modern scholars have stressed, it seems that such an enumeration is beneficial and that Socrates criticisms are misplaced. First, understanding what kinds of things are knowledge will help define the sort of thing knowledge is.2 Second, a list of examples of knowledge will provide a good means of checking any definition offered.3 Third, and most controversially, it may be held that no single answer to the question What is knowledge? can be given, that an enumeration of the various kinds of knowledge is in fact the best response we can give.4 Why, then, is Socrates so dismissive of Theaetetus response? It should be noted that all the above objections rely on a certain assumption of what the What is knowledge? question is afternamely, that it is really asking: What
1 2

All quotations of the Theaetetus come from the M. J. Levett translation. Burnyeat (1990): It is a problem to see how we can look for a definition, or discuss the merits of one that has been proposed, if we do not know any examples of the concept to be defined (4). 3 McDowell (1973): It might be objected that if we were sure of the correctness of the list, it would be a useful check on suggested answers to the questiona source of counter-instances (114). 4 A Wittgensteinian objection, which Wittgenstein himself raised, remarking: The idea that in order to get clear about the meaning of a general term one had to find the common element in all its applications has shackled philosophical investigation; for it has not only led to no result, but also made the philosopher dismiss as irrelevant the concrete cases, which alone could have helped him to understand the usage of the general term. When Socrates asks the question, what is knowledge? he does not even regard it as a preliminary answer to enumerate cases of knowledge (The Blue and Brown Books, pp. 19-20). See also Philosophical Investigations 66 and the discussion in McDowell (1973, p. 115).

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counts, or qualifies, as knowledge? That is, what is it that all instances of knowledge have in common, which distinguishes them from all other things?5 Indeed, if this were the question, Theaetetus list of examples might very well point towards an answer. Thus the fact that Theaetetus list is so firmly dismissed suggests that a different question is in fact being asked.6 In fact, Plato takes the question of what counts as knowledge as already settled, or at least is assuming that it is settled for the purposes of the Theaetetus. His aim is not (as it is in the Republic) to present some revisionary account of knowledge at odds with our common understanding of the word. To the contrary, in the Theaetetus Plato repeatedly relies on our intuitions of what counts as knowledge and who the knowers are.7 Even with this question settled, however, a further question remains, namely: What gives knowledge its distinctive value? That is, what is it about knowledge that makes it an honorific term and makes us praise the knower as wise? This is the question Plato is really after, and in fact, this is what the text itself suggests. In the preliminary discussions that lead up to Socrates question, knowledge is repeatedly characterized in normative terms: Theaetetus is praised by Theodorus for his knowledge (144a-b, 145b); Theodorus is honored by his followers for his knowledge in geometry and other disciplines (143d-e, 145a, 145d, 146c); and immediately before

This reading thus sees the What is knowledge question as analogous to the question of the early Socratic dialogues, such as the Euthyphro, where Socrates says: Tell me then what this form [of piety] itself is, so that I may look upon it and, using it as a model, say that any action of yours or anothers that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not (6e). 6 Socrates, too, sees that Theaetetus is misunderstanding the question; note his remark to Theaetetus, quoted above, that this is not what you were asked (146e), and later, So when the question raised is What is knowledge?, to reply by naming one of the crafts is an absurd answer; because it points out something that knowledge is of when this is not what the question was about (147b-c, emphasis my own). 7 Consider, for instance, Socrates arguments against Protagoras concerning expert knowers (178c-179b), the jury example (201a-c), and the discussion about learning how to read and write and the knowledge of syllables (207d-208b).

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Socrates asks What is knowledge? he points out that knowledge is the same thing as wisdom, one of the cardinal virtues. These passages establish that knowledge is a value term; the question that then follows is: Where does this value come from? This is the question Socrates is really asking.8 II. THE FIRST PERSONAL CHARACTER OF KNOWLEDGE How, then, is Theaetetus first definition a plausible answer to this question? What does perception have to do with the normative value of knowledge? To answer these questions, we must look to further aspects of the dialogues preliminary discussion, which, by demonstrating the ways in which knowledge is distinctive, suggest the very definition that Theaetetus gives. Most noteworthy among these preliminary discussions is the interchange at 144e145c, wherein is discussed the example of the expert in music; Socrates says: SOC. Theodorus says I am like you. But look. If you and I each had a lyre, and Theodorus had told us that they were both similarly tuned, should we have taken his word for it straight away? Or should we have tried to find out if he was speaking with any expert knowledge of music? THEAET. Oh, we should have inquired into that. SOC. And if we had found that he was a musician, we should have believed what he said; but if we found he had no such qualification, we should have put no faith in him. (144d-e) The claim is that, in order to determine whether or not the experts assertion that two lyres are in tune is correct, we must examine not the lyres but the expert himself, to see if indeed he has any expert knowledge of music. This is a significant claim. It suggests that the way we evaluate the knowledge others claim to possess is by looking not at the object
8

Lest I be thought of as reading too much into the text, it should be noted that this interpretation is still broadly in line with understanding Socrates as asking for the essence of knowledge, since whatever gives knowledge its normative value will presumably be shared by all its instances. For a good defense of the essence reading, see Nehamas (1989, pp. 15-16).

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of their knowledge (to see if their claims hold up) but, rather, at the knowers themselves. Indeed, immediately following this discussion of the musical expert, Socrates asserts that he and Theaetetus, in order to determine whether their faces look alike, as Theodorus earlier claimed, must consider whether [Theodorus was] speaking with any knowledge of drawing or not (145a). These examples suggest that there is something opaque, or inaccessible, about the objects of knowledge to the non-expert, which prohibits him from making any judgments about them. In the case of musical knowledge, this seems reasonable: it is simply the claim that the musically untrained (much less the tone deaf) do not have the discriminatory ability, or possibly even the phenomenal experience, to tell whether two lyres are in tuneonly the musical expert can make this judgment. In the case of artistic knowledge, the claim seems less convincing; nonetheless, we should take Socrates at his word: the artistically untrained do not have the acuity and refinement of vision to tell whether two faces look alike. This discussion thus suggests that the knower is distinguished by some sort of unique power in hima distinctive, first personal experience that non-knowers lack. How, then, does one recognize the knower? Must one be an expert in knowledge? The text tells against this suggestion; it seems, in fact, that one needs no special knowledge at all. As the passages quoted above make clear, examination of the knower is the one form of epistemic evaluation left open to the non-expertwhen one is unable to judge the objects of some kind of knowledge, one can still judge the knower himself. Knowledge is thus an exceptional case, the one object of knowledge that can be known

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without any particular expertise. Indeed, this point is made explicit shortly after the discussion of the musical and artistic expert, when Socrates remarks to Theaetetus: But supposing it were the soul of one of us that he was praising? Suppose he said one of us was good and wise? Oughtnt the one who heard that to be very anxious to examine the object of such praise? And oughtnt the other to be very willing to show himself off? This passage demonstrates that when the claim under assessment is whether someone is wise (that is, has knowledge), the standard method of evaluation is reversed: we examine the object of the praise, not the one praising. The asymmetry between this and the normal situation is explained by the fact that in the case of knowledge attributions, we do not need to examine the knowledge of the one making the assertion. Rather, we can directly examine the one to which knowledge is being ascribed, for knowledge is something that anyone can assess. Why is knowledge unique in this way? It could because we all possess the special discriminatory ability to tell whether someone has knowledge. Perhaps this is so, but there is another explanation as well. Examining anothers knowledge is not a detached form of investigation; part of the process involves having the knower demonstrate his knowledge and show himself off. This suggests that knowledge can always be brought out and displayed by the knower when present, that the knower himself has the special ability to make his knowledge manifest. This, then, is another reason why knowledge should be recognizable to anyone, and further indication that it is distinguished by a unique power in the knowera self-intimating, first personal experience that makes him aware of his knowledge and capable of demonstrating it to others.9

In this way, the characterization of knowledge in the Theaetetus is similar to that of temperance in the Charmides, although the self-intimating nature of these virtues is made more explicit in the latter. Early on

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Indeed, the idea that knowledge is somehow recognizable to the non-knower lies at the heart of Socrates characterization of himself as philosophical midwife (148e151d). His duty, he explains, is to deliver the intellectual offspring of others, and to determine whether they are genuine instances of knowledge or not. Nevertheless, Socrates himself is barren of any wisdom or knowledge, as he repeatedly reminds Theaetetus of throughout the dialogue (150c-d, 157c-d, 210c-d). Thus it is not by virtue of any knowledge of his own that Socrates is able to bring out and recognize the knowledge of others.10 The midwife analogy is important for another reason, as well, as it further emphasizes the idea that knowledge is something distinctly first personal. Potential knowers like Theaetetus are described by Socrates as pregnant, suffering from the pains of labor (148e, 151a). With the right midwife assisting them, however, they can give birth to an offspring, discover[ing] within themselves a multitude of beautiful things (150d). Thus the knowledge they bring forth is decidedly their own, conceived (literally and

in the dialogue, Socrates remarks, Now it is clear that if temperance is present in you, you have some opinion about it. Because it is necessary, I suppose, that if it really resides in you, it provides a sense of its presence, by means of which you would form an opinion not only that you have it but of what sort it is (158e-159a). Later he reiterates this point, saying to Charmides, Look into yourself with greater concentration, and when you have decided what effect the presence of temperance has upon you and what sort of thing it must be to have this effect, then put all this together and tell me clearly and bravely, what does it appear to you to be? (160d-e). Thus temperance, like knowledge, by its very presence, offers its subject privileged, first personal access to what it is. In fact, the connections between knowledge and temperance may run even deeper, as some of the more fruitful considerations in the Charmides involve defining temperance as knowing oneself (cf. 164d ff.) and as the science of science (cf. 166c ff.). 10 An objection might be raised at this point as to why we should take the midwife analogy as any indication that knowledge is recognizable to anyone, as previously suggested, and not, rather, only to those who possess the midwifes special art. Here are a few responses: First, the art of the midwife involves more than merely recognizing others knowledge, so one could conceivably have this ability without having the rest. Second, Socrates in his role as midwife might be applying very high and strict standards in distinguishing the genuine intellectual offspring from the wind-eggs; others thus may still be able to recognize knowledge in a relaxed sense. Nevertheless, more needs to be said as to what exactly separates Socrates maieutic art from the ordinary capacity to recognize knowledge that I am claiming everyone has.

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figuratively) in their own minds. In this way, as before, knowledge is presented as a special, inner experience, something the knower undergoes and feels in himself.11 We are now in a position to see why Theaetetus first definition makes sense. The discussions that precede it, as we have seen, all frame knowledge in first personal terms, likening it to a phenomenal sensation, an intimate awareness, or an inner experience. Perception is representative of precisely this kind of experience: decidedly within the subject, wholly his own, self-intimating, immediate, and phenomenally rich. The thought behind identifying knowledge with perception, then, is that it seems that the knower perceives things differently than the non-knower. That is what makes him a knower, and that is what gives knowledge its normative value: the knower has perceptions (broadly construed) that others do not. This is the thought that motivates Theaetetus first definition, and presented in this light, the definition does not seem so implausible. Unfortunately, it is nonetheless incorrect. In the long discussion that follows, Plato shows why perception cannot in fact be knowledge, even on the most detailed understanding of the thesis. He does not, however, challenge the first personal character of knowledge; he merely argues that it must be characterized in different terms, with judgment in place of perception. Why he thinks this and how he achieves it are the questions to which we now turn. III. KNOWLEDGE IS PERCEPTION For all its conceptual insight, Theaetetus first definition is hardly informative as to how perception gives us knowledge, and for this reason Socrates initial response is to elaborate the claim into its most plausible form. His first move is to assimilate the
11

For more on the midwife image and how it contrasts with the pedagogical models of other dialogues, see Burnyeat (1992).

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definition to Protagoras Measure Thesis, the idea that as each thing appears to me, so it is for me, and as it appears to you, so it is for you (152a). The thought behind this assimilation is that the best way to show that knowledge is indeed perception is to show that perceptual judgments (broadly construed) always yield knowledge. And this is precisely what the Measure Thesis tells us: if one perceives the wind as cold, then it is cold (for her), and if another perceives it as hot, then it is hot (again, for her) (cf. 152b-c). This explanation alone, however, is not enough, for there still remains the question of why perceptual judgments should possess this privileged epistemic status. Thus Socrates offers a further elaborationthe so-called Secret Doctrinewhich answers this question by showing that perceptual judgments are infallible and incorrigible, and thus (the thought goes) appropriate foundations for knowledge. To do this, it first expands on and strengthens the Measure Thesis by positing a world of flux, a world in which nothing is and everything is in the process of coming to be. On this supposition, it is able to claim that perceptual properties (whiteness, hotness, and so on) are relational, located neither in the perceived object nor in the perceiver but rather somewhere in between the two. In this way, the Secret Doctrine provides a metaphysical explanation of why an object perceived to have perceptual property F is not in itself F but is only F for the one who perceives it as such, which is precisely the original claim of the Measure Thesis.12 Moreover, the Secret Doctrine provides a way to deal with the important issue of false perceptionsas Socrates enumerates them, the cases of dreams, and of insanity and other diseases; also what is called mishearing or misseeing or other cases of misperceiving (157e). Socrates acknowledges that such perceptions may seem to refute
12

I am indebted to the lucid discussion in Lee (2000) for clarifying these issues.

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the idea that perceptual judgments always yield knowledge, noting: Here it is far from being true that all things which appear to the individual also are. On the contrary, no one of the things which appear to him really is (158a). However, as he goes on to show, the Secret Doctrine can still be defended by maintaining that since all perceptions are relative to a perceiver, all of them, even the so-called false perceptions, are true for their perceiver. That is, as a perception has no existence independent from the one perceiving it, the perceiver has privileged (indeed, sole) access to her perceptions. Thus even the madman, who is wrong about most everything, has a certain set of beliefs that he cannot be wrong abouthis beliefs about what he is presently perceiving. In this way, the Secret Doctrine shows perceptual judgments to be infallible and incorrigible: they are always right and beyond doubt.13 Such properties might make perceptual judgments seem like good candidates for knowledge. However, the Secret Doctrine is fatally flawed, in that the metaphysical picture it advances to support this claim does away with the conventional notions of objectivity and subjectivity. Without the former, perceptual judgments cannot possibly yield knowledge, and without the latter, perception loses its first personal character. Understanding these two aspects of its argument will show us why the Secret Doctrine, and Theaetetus first definition along with it, fails. Let us look first at the notion of subjectivity. To begin, it is important to note that the perceivers in the Secret Doctrines world of flux are not in fact human subjects but rather the sense organs themselves. Thus Socrates speaks of perception occurring between the eye and a visible object (153d-e, 156d-e), or between the tongue and a drink

13

As Socrates sums it up: I am thus unerring and never stumble in my thought about what isor what is coming to be (160d).

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of wine (159d-e). This means that intrafaculty perceptions are not strictly unified: what Socrates eye perceives is one thing, what his tongue perceives is another and wholly separate from it.14 Loosely speaking, of course, we can identify a set of sense organs as all belonging to a single subject, but this does not change the fact that perceptions, properly understood, belong to their individual sense organ alone, and that there is no single subject in which they are all united. Moreover, interfaculty perceptions are similarly not unified: as each perception a given sense organ has is a distinct perception, it itself is at each moment a distinct subject.15 That is, as every perception is a unique, momentary occurrence, every perceiving subject is also unique and momentary. Again, loosely speaking, we may speak of a single sense organ perduring over time, but in fact no such transtemporal identity exists. Thus according to the Secret Doctrine, there is no such thing as a unified and perduring subject associated with our perceptions, and without this subjectivity, it is unclear how perception could represent the first personal character of knowledge. However, these concerns do not figure into the explicit refutation of the Secret Doctrine at allthey are an unpalatable result, to be sure, but not the finishing blow. The more devastating issue is how the Secret Doctrine handles (or rather, fails to handle) objectivity. More specifically, insofar as perceptual judgments are infallible and incorrigible, they cannot be objective, and this precludes the possibility of their being knowledge. The reasons for this, as will be shown, are linguisticnamely that it is not

14

Burnyeat (1976) first alerted me to this feature of the Secret Doctrine; he writes, for example, If, similarly, Socrates is to be identified with his eye when he sees something white, it follows that the Socrates who tastes something sweet at a certain moment is distinct from the Socrates who sees something white at that moment (31). 15 As Socrates says, A perception of something else is another perception, and makes another and a changed percipient (159e-160a).

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possible, within the language of perceptual judgments alone, to form the kinds of objective judgments characteristic of knowledge. Here is how Plato presents this argument. Recall that, in order to make perceptual judgments infallible and incorrigible, the Secret Doctrine needed to posit a world of flux. In such a world, as stated above, everything is in motion and in the process of change. Because of this, as Socrates points out at 182d ff., nothing is any more one thing than another. This applies also to acts of perception, which are equally things in the world and thus in motion. As Socrates puts it, Then we may not call anything seeing rather than not-seeing; nor indeed may we call it any other perception rather than notif it be admitted that all things are in motion in every way (182e). Knowledge, then, if it is to be identified with perception, turns out to be something which is no more knowledge than not (182e). This, of course, is an unacceptable result; yet it is the only result possible within the Secret Doctrines world of flux. As Socrates concludes, If all things are in motion, every answer, on whatever subject, is equally correct, both it is thus and it is not thus (183a). In other words, there is no stability within the world of flux, and thus no room in its language of perceptual judgments for stable predicates like is. Without such predicates, however, we cannot have anything resembling knowledge. Thus knowledge is shown to require something other than the infallibility and incorrigibility of perceptual judgments. In fact, it requires something such judgments crucially lack: objectivity. This objectivity is encapsulated by the predicate is (or more appropriately, the Greek verb ), which is precisely what makes our judgments be about the world, as opposed to non-world-oriented predicates like seems () or

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appears (). That is, to say that things are thus-and-so is to make a claim that is answerable to objective standards, to the way things are in the world.16 This is not to commit Plato to anything as specific as a correspondence theory of truth; the point is merely that is-judgments have a distinctive world-aboutness to them.17 Of course, the defenders of the Secret Doctrine will argue that perceptual judgments, on their account, are also about how things are in the worldit is just that the world is ever-changing and unstable. Plato, however, is too sharp to give in to this objection. He recognizes that a stable world is a necessary presupposition of any claim that may qualify as knowledge, including the Secret Doctrines own claims about how the world is. In an unstable world, no such claims could be formulated, as nothing is any more one thing than another. As Socrates points out, The exponents of this theory [of the Secret Doctrine] need to establish some other language; as it is, they have no words that are consistent with their hypothesis (183b). In short, the language of perceptual judgments required by the Secret Doctrines world of flux is insufficient for knowledge, as the Secret Doctrine itself makes clear by stepping outside this language to articulate its own position.18

16

Cooper (1970) makes a similar point, albeit in the context of his discussion of Theaetetus 184-186: Just as Plato insists that judgments of value imply the existence of objective standards which experts constantly use to guide their thought, so one must be guided by objective standards in saying how things in the world are (143). 17 This point has important affinities to the discussion of predication in the Sophist; cf. especially 262e ff. 18 I find an odd parallel between my reading of the refutation of the Secret Doctrine and Wilfrid Sellarss attack on the myth of the given in Empiricism & The Philosophy of Mind, specifically his discussion of istalk and looks-talk. There Sellars argues against a position similar, if not identical, to the Secret Doctrine: the idea that our incorrigible statements of how things look play some epistemologically foundational role in relation to all our other claims. Sellarss refutation of this idea is that is-talk is in fact prior to lookstalk, that one cannot master the practice of making looks-statements without first mastering the practice of making is-statements. As Robert Brandom, in his commentary on Sellarss text, explains: Looks talk is not an autonomous language gameone that could be played though one played no other. It is entirely parasitic on the practice of making risky empirical reports of how things actually are. Thus Descartes seized on a genuine phenomenonthe incorrigibility of claims about appearances, reflecting the non-iterability of operators like looks, seems, and appearsbut misunderstood its nature, and so

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We have now seen why knowledge cannot be perception. Crucially, perceptual judgments lack any objectivity, without which they cannot yield any genuine knowledge. In addition, the account of perception presented in the Secret Doctrine cannot accommodate any recognizable notion of subjectivity, as it does not allow for a unified and perduring subject. The correct account of knowledge will need to bring both these elements back into the picture. And indeed, this is precisely what Plato does in the argument at 184-186, characterizing knowledge in terms not of perception but of judgment. To see how this explanation works, we will look first at how judgment is shown to give us objectivity, and then see how it captures the first personal character of knowledge. IV. KNOWLEDGE IS JUDGMENT The discussion at 184-186 ends with the argument that for someone to know something, one must get at truth, and to get at truth, one must get at being, or (186c). Being is here viewed as essential to knowledge because it represents the power of objective judgment and predication, encapsulated, as we saw above, by its cognate verb .19 Without grasping the being of somethingwhat, or that, it is (cf. 186b6)one cannot know anything about it, for knowledge is precisely knowledge of what it is. This short
mistakenly thought it available to play an epistemologically foundational role for which it is in no way suited (Sellars 1997, 143). These comments seem to me closely akin to Platos arguments concerning the language of perceptual judgments. Perhaps this parallel with Sellars will lend further support and plausibility to my reading of the Secret Doctrine and its refutation; but then again, perhaps my reading has been overly influenced by Sellars in the first place. 19 Cooper (1970) advances a similar point: To grasp the of something is not necessarily to think that it exists, but may be no more than think that it is F for some predicate F. In that case to be deprived of the use of would mean that one was incapable of predicating anything of anything else, since the copula, which is indispensable to predication, would be unavailable. Hence, without the use of one could not have the power of judgment (140). Cf. also Burnyeat (1976): If, on the other hand, the notion of being at work in the final argument is the quite general one which abstracts from the is in propositions of the form x is F, then in appealing to the point that a grasp of being is a necessary condition for attaining truth or knowledge Socrates is bringing to bear an agreement which has governed the discussion since 152c (45).

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argument thus reiterates the point of the refutation of the Secret Doctrine: knowledge requires objectivity. It thus remains to be shown how it is possible for us to grasp being. Socrates begins this explanation by noting that being is one of the common features, or : the non-perceptible concepts predicated of all types of perceived objects, as opposed to perceptible concepts like red or sweet, which are peculiar to one specific sense (185a-d). Because of this, being cannot be grasped through one of the five cardinal senses, as sight, for example, would not be able to grasp the being of a sound, taste, smell, or touch. This thought is guided by the claim that what you perceive through one power, you cannot perceive through another (184e-185a). Putting aside the contentiousness of this claim,20 we can see that it entails that there must be some additional power, above and beyond the five senses, which is set over the common features. When asked by Socrates what this additional power may be, Theaetetus timidly suggests: All I can tell you is that it doesnt seem to me that for these things [the common features] there is any special instrument at all, as there is for others. It seems to me that in investigating the common features of everything the soul functions through itself. (185d-e) Socrates embraces this suggestion, and the common features are accepted to be not the objects of a special, sixth sense but the things contemplated by the soul when it is functioning through itself (that is, as opposed to through the sense organs). This activity of the soul, moreover, is none other than judgment (187a5-8). Thus, perhaps expectedly,

20

For example, philosophers as early as Aristotle have suggested that we perceive properties such as shape and motion through multiple senses.

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the ability by which we get at being and thereby knowledge is our ability to judge, which turns out to the ability of our soul alone.21 This account is enough to bring objectivity back into the picture: the judgments of the soul are first and foremost judgments of being, which, as we saw above, are precisely the sorts of judgments that are objective and about the world. Some work remains, however, to fill out Platos account of subjectivity and thus to see how judgment retains the first personal character of knowledge, and for this we must turn back to where this discussion starts. Socrates begins by making a seemingly pedantic grammatical point, clarifying that the senses are that through which, not with which, we perceive. However, the distinction is not as innocuous as it may seem, for, as explained cogently in Burnyeat (1976), the with idiom carries with it connotations of subjecthood or even agency (38) and thus may suggest that the senses are the subjects of perception. By rejecting the with idiom, Plato thus moves away from the picture of the senses as perceiving subjects, and with it from the idea that the senses have any autonomy or judgmental capacity (cf. Burnyeat 1976, pp. 34, 36). This denial is important because it directly contrasts with the conception advanced by the Secret Doctrine of the sense organs as perceivers. This conception, as we have seen, must be rejected as it rules out the possibility of knowledge. The through idiom effects this rejection: on its conception, the senses are equipment for a job (Burnyeat 1976, p. 37), to be used by the actual subject and agent of perception as needed.22

21

In this way, Platos discussion of the soul can be seen as proceeding in a distinctly Kantian spirit. (I am not alone in this understanding; see Cooper (1970, p. 144).) 22 Burnyeat (1976, pp. 42-43) notes that nothing turns on whether the soul is conceived of as active or passive in perception, further supported by the fact that the through idiom admits of both readings.

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With this grammatical and conceptual correction thus in place, Socrates presents his definition of the soul as unified perceiving subject: It would be a very strange thing, I must say, if there were a number of senses sitting inside us as if we were Wooden Horses, and there were not some single form, soul or whatever one ought to call it, to which all these converge something with which, through the senses, as if they were instruments, we perceive all that is perceptible. (184d) The Wooden Horse model is an elaboration of the rejected theory of the Secret Doctrine;23 the unified perceiving subject model is Platos original contribution. This model is an important element of the argument because it explains how the soul can make judgments about the common features, which, though themselves non-perceptible (that is, not the proper objects of any sense), are nonetheless predicated of all types of perceived objects. According to the unified perceiving subject model, the soul is the agent of perception (in other words, that with which we perceive), and it perceives through the senses; it is thus aware of the things the sense organs perceive.24 Moreover, it is capable

23 24

As argued for by Burnyeat (1976, pp. 30-1). Cooper (1970) discusses at length the question of whether the minds perceptual activity is to be conceived as mere sensory awareness, without the application of perceptible concepts like red or sweet, or as sensory awareness plus the use of these perceptible concepts. Cooper offers arguments in favor of both conceptions and in the end remains agnostic as to which one is more correct. However, I believe that at least some of Coopers arguments are confused. As evidence against the latter conception, he writes, Presumably, [Plato] does not imagine that beasts and day-old babies are capable of using concepts [i.e. perceptible concepts] (131). (See the quote from 186b-c below.) Presumably, he says this because he conceives of the application of perceptible concepts to involve, for example, taking something to be red rather than taking it as red. The former involves the exercise of the judgmental power of our soul (note the to be); the latter involves a mere discriminatory ability. As long as perceptible concepts are confined to the latter category, I see no reason why their application should not be included in the minds perceptual activity, even when it comes to the minds of babies and beasts. Brandom (2009) draws a helpful distinction between labels and descriptions; he writes: Labels distinguish things. If two objects have different labels, we may conclude that they are different in some respect. But a mere label tells us nothing about which respect. If two objects have different descriptions, however, we not only may conclude that they are different, but can consult the content of the description to learn something about how they are different Red is a description, and not just a label, in part because being red follows from being scarlet, entails being colored, and rules out being green. Understanding a description, as opposed to being able to apply a label, is a matter of practically mastering the inferential relations it stands in to other descriptions: its place in the space of reasons or implications. The parrot we have trained reliably to respond to the visible presence of red things by squawking Thats red is applying

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of another activity, with and through itself, by which it predicates the non-perceptible common features of perceived things; this is its activity of judgment. In this way, this conception of the soul and subjectivity provides the final element needed for knowledge to be made possible. Moreover, the unified perceiving subject model of the soul explains how judgment is capable of capturing the first personal character of knowledge. For indeed, judgment has been shown to be an intimately first personal experiencethe activity of none other than ones soul. The knower is thus distinguished by a unique power in him not the power to perceive, however, but rather the power to judge.25 V. CONCLUSIONS

a label. A three-year-old child who knows that red lollipops have a cherry taste and red traffic lights mean Stop is already applying a descriptive concept (7-8). Perceptible concepts can be understood as labels; they are mere markers of perceptual differences that, indeed, even a parrot can master. The concepts that the soul applies, on the other hand, are descriptions they require the use of our faculty of judgment, which as Brandom sees it involves mastering their inferential relations to other descriptions. Brandom here claims that red is a description, but, as what he goes on to say suggests, what he really ought to say is is red. The parrot still has some concept of red namely, the labelwhereas only the soul can grasp the being and objective character of is red. With this clarification, I think Brandoms distinction is a helpful aid in understanding Platos conception of the souls various activities. 25 This is not to suggest, however, that only judgment can capture this first personal character, but rather that only judgment can both do this and give us the objectivity needed for knowledge. Indeed, once we escape the Secret Doctrines metaphysical picture, perception can once again be seen as representative of first personal experience; consider later in this argument when Socrates says: And thus there are some things which all creatures, men and animals alike, are naturally able to perceive as soon as they are born; I mean, the experiences which reach the soul through the body. But calculations regarding their being and their advantageousness come, when they do, only as the result of a long and arduous development, involving a good deal of trouble and education (186b-c). Here we see Plato distinguishing two types of consciousness. First, there is what we may call animal consciousness, or sentience: the consciousness all perceptive animals share due to the presence of the unified perceiving subject in them. Second, there is rational consciousness, or sapience: the consciousness only we adult humans are capable of by means of exercising the judgmental powers of our soul. Thus according to this explanation, perception is most certainly first personal; indeed, for animals and children, it is the paradigm of first personal experience. Nonetheless, it is only the rational first personal experience of judgment that is appropriate for capturing the first personal character of knowledge.

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We have now reached a synoptic understanding of Theaetetus first definition, following it from its initial motivations to its ultimate refutation and rectification, which culminates in the thesis the knowledge is judgment. However, this is hardly all there is to be said. Beyond the many parts of the definition itself that have been neglected (such as the refutation of Protagoras and the digression), there is also the further question of how the first definition bears on the rest of the Theaetetus. For judgment is not all there is to knowledge, and as the dialogue goes on to show, further conditions are needed to explain fully its normative value. Yet throughout the subsequent discussions, judgment remains a constant feature of the definition and is never called into question. Thus we can read the first definition as giving us one necessary, though not sufficient, condition for knowledgejudgmentwhich captures the first personal character of knowledge. The remainder of the dialogue acts to fill in the rest of the definition. Theaetetus second definition provides another condition for knowledgetruthwhich captures its third personal character, establishing that false judgments cannot be knowledge (despite the difficulties in showing that false judgments are even possible). Theaetetus third definition, however, fails to complete the account, and the dialogue ends with knowledge still partly undefined. As I see it, the third definition fails because its additional condition for knowledgea logosstays within the second definitions third personal mode, when in fact the final condition must capture its second personal character. By this I mean that an essential element of knowledge is the recognition of that knowledge by another as such.26

26

My suggestion is thus that knowledge is to be identified not as the conventional notion of justified true belief but rather as recognized true belief, an idea which has certain affinities with the account presented in Robert Brandoms Making It Explicit (cf. especially pp. 199-206).

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And in fact, this idea is not wholly absent from the text. In the preliminary discussion of the musical and artistic experts, for example, it is stressed that the supposed knower must be examined and acknowledged before his assertions will count as knowledge. Moreover, the midwife image rests on the idea that it is Socrates act of recognition that distinguishes genuine knowledge from mere wind-eggs. Indeed, this point is emphasized at the very end of the dialogue, when Socrates notes that his midwifes art, despite failing to produce a final answer, has shown Theaetetus what he does not know, precisely by refusing to recognize any of his answers as acceptable (210c). This second personal element of social recognition is what Theaetetus fails to grasp about knowledge, and this is why his definitional endeavors end in aporia. Yet it is not a point that should escape the careful reader of the Theaetetus, as recognition is a far from inconspicuous element within the texts dialectical structure, lying at the heart of not only Socrates maieutic method, but even, one might say, Platos dialogue form.

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WORKS CITED Brandom, R. (1994). Making It Explicit. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Brandom, R. (2009). Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Burnyeat, M. F. (1976). Plato on the Grammar of Perceiving. The Classical Quarterly, New Series, 26 (1): 26-51. Burnyeat, M. F. (1990). The Theaetetus of Plato (M. J. Levett, Trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Burnyeat, M. F. (1992). Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration. In H. H. Benson (Ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooper, J. (1970). Plato on Sense-Perception and Knowledge (Theaetetus 184-186). Phronesis, 15 (2): 123-146. Lee, M. (2000). The Secret Doctrine: Platos Defence of Protagoras in the Theaetetus. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 19: 47-86. McDowell, J. (1973). Plato: Theaetetus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nehamas, A. (1989). Episteme and Logos in Platos Later Thought. In J. P. Anton, A. Preus (Eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Vol. III: Plato, pp. 267-292. Albany: State University of New York Press. Plato. Complete Works (J. M. Cooper, Ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Sellars, W. (1997). Empiricism & The Philosophy of Mind (with an Introduction by Richard Rorty, and a Study Guide by Robert Brandom). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1958). The Blue and Brown Books. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.) (3rd ed., 2001). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

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