Socrates
SOC. Then neither he who holds opinion of both nor he who holds it of one can hold the opinion that a thing is something else. And so anyone who sets out to define false opinion as interchanged opinion would be talking nonsense. Then neither by this method nor by our previous methods is false opinion found to exist in us.
15
Socrates
SOC. But yet, Theaetetus, if this is found not to exist, we shall be forced to admit many absurdities.
Socrates
SOC. I will not tell you until I have tried to consider the matter in every way. For I should be ashamed of us, if, in our perplexity, we were forced to make such admissions as those to which I refer. But if we find the object of our quest, and are set free from perplexity, then, and not before, we will speak of others as involved in those absurdities, and we ourselves shall stand free from ridicule. But if we find no escape from our perplexity, we shall, I fancy, become low-spirited, like seasick people, and shall allow the argument to trample on us and do to us anything it pleases. Hear, then, by what means I still see a prospect of success for our quest.
Socrates
SOC. I shall deny that we were right when we agreed that it is impossible for a man to have opinion that the things he does not know are the things which he knows, and thus to be deceived. But there is a way in which it is possible.
