Note (return) — Chapter X

Plato, in the "Theætetus," puts this question by the interlocutor Socrates, "What is Science (᾽Επιστήµη) or positive knowledge?" 520 Theætetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation," "Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates, are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer of his own. He abruptly closes the discussion by naïvely remarking that, at any rate, Theætetus will learn that he does not understand the subject; and the ground is now cleared for an original investigation.