165
Theodorus
THEO. To both of us, but let the younger answer; for he will be less disgraced if he is discomfited.
Socrates
SOC. Very well; now I am going to ask the most frightfully difficult question of all. It runs, I believe, something like this: Is it possible for a person, if he knows a thing, at the same time not to know that which he knows?
Theodorus
THEO. Now, then, what shall we answer, Theaetetus?
5
Theaetetus
THEAET. It is impossible, I should think.
Socrates
SOC. Not if you make seeing and knowing identical. For what will you do with a question from which there is no escape, by which you are, as the saying is, caught in a pit, when your adversary, unabashed, puts his hand over one of your eyes and asks if you see his cloak with the eye that is covered?
Theaetetus
THEAET. I shall say, I think, Not with that eye, but with the other.
Socrates
SOC. Then you see and do not see the same thing at the same time?
Theaetetus
THEAET. After a fashion.
10
Socrates
SOC. That, he will reply, is not at all what I want, and I did not ask about the fashion, but whether you both know and do not know the same thing. Now manifestly you see that which you do not see. But you have agreed that seeing is knowing and not seeing is not knowing. Very well; from all this, reckon out what the result is.
Theaetetus
THEAET. Well, I reckon out that the result is the contrary of my hypothesis.