Theaetetus by Plato & John McDowell

Author:Plato & John McDowell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Epistemology, Ancient, Knowledge, Science, Philosophy, General, Theory Of, History & Surveys, Ancient & Classical
ISBN: 9780198720836
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Published: 1921-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

159a10-11. The reference is to 156a6-7.

159a13-14. The reference is to 156d5-6; cf. also 154a2-8. The principle stated here could be represented as a consequence of that suggested by the question at 158e7-10 (proposition (1), in the note on 158e6-159a9).

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159b2-c3. The result of 158e6-159a9 here yields the conclusion that, e.g., Socrates healthy is different from Socrates ill. Theaetetus' question, at 159b6-7, has the effect of stressing that this conclusion should be stated as follows: Socrates healthy and Socrates ill are two different wholes. Now two different wholes need not be wholly different. And although the qualification 'wholly' does not appear at 159a13-14, some such qualification would seem to be necessary if the principle stated there is to be plausible. For suppose, e.g., that the onset of Socrates' illness makes no difference to his eyes, and that he is looking at something when the illness begins. It is not, in that case, obvious that the interaction between Socrates and the object cannot continue to produce the same offspring after the onset of the illness as before it: even though what we have here, according to the present passage, is a pair of interactions between the object and each of two different wholes. If this is right, then the argument of 159c4-10 is going to require, if it is to be plausible, not merely that Socrates healthy and Socrates ill are two different wholes, but the evidently stronger, and implausible, proposition that Socrates healthy and Socrates ill are wholly different. Theaetetus' question at 159b6-7 may be a signal from Plato that there is something wrong.159c4-10. This passage applies the principle of 159a13-14 to the conclusion of 159b2-c3, to yield the following: the interaction of any perceptible object with Socrates healthy will generate numerically different products from the interaction of that object with Socrates ill. Cf. note on 159b2-c3 for the doubtfulness of this conclusion.159c11-e6. Detailed description of a case illustrating the conclusion of 159c4-10. In the case chosen, the conclusion is not implausible: if we think of suitable kinds of illness, it is reasonable to expect that the interaction of the same wine with, on the one hand, Socrates healthy and, on the other, Socrates ill will generate not merely numerically different qualityinstances but actually instances of different qualities (e.g. sweetness and bitterness). But it is obvious that this is plausible, not because it is an application of the conclusion of 159c4-10, but because of special features of the particular case.The passage harks back to the account of perception at 155d-157c. Some specific references may be helpful.

1. 'A sweetness. . . . a perception' (159d1; cf. 159e2-4): see note on 156d4.

2. 'From the thing which is acted on . . . from the wine' (159d2-4): see note on 156e1-2.

3. 'Not bitterness, but bitter . . . not perception, but a perceiving thing' (159e4-5): see note on 156e3-7.

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