PLATO Theaetetus
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MM McCabe Thursdays 11-1.
This seminar will work through Plato’s Theaetetus, with detailed comparison to other
Platonic texts for comparison and contrast. The seminar will use the translation of the
Theaetetus by M.J.Levett (Hackett, 1990); discussion of Greek will be adapted to suit
the non-Greek reader. Below is a proposed division of sections; but we may find that
their boundaries are vague; and that we shall go back and forth during the course of
the seminar.
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So please read the whole Theaetetus (if possible, several times, and without
skipping!) before the seminar. Please also read the other texts as we go along (these
are selected passages: all the better if you read the surrounding context). It would be
helpful if the texts for comparison were analysed and presented briefly during the
seminar: we can discuss how to organise this, but the best thing would be to have a
presentation each week given by one of the participants.
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There will be a list of secondary reading provided at the beginning of the seminar.
But part of the aim of the course is to think directly about the text, so that reading and
rereading Plato is the best preparation of all.
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The best collection of translations of the dialogues can be found in J.M. Cooper and
D. Hutchinson, eds. Plato: Complete works (Hackett Publishers 1997); this volume
includes the Levett translation of the Theaetetus, but the separate edition of the Levett
translation includes also Burnyeat’s magisterial Introduction.
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Week 1, Oct 2:
Main text Theaetetus 142-147d Setting and narrative; the structure of the
dialogue (Platonic method); background assumptions?
Supplementary texts Phaedrus 274b-277a; Meno 71e-79e
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Week 2, Oct 9:
Main text Theaetetus 147d- 151d Midwifery and Socratic method.
Supplementary texts Apology 20b-24b; Symposium 206b-212b
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Week 3, Oct 16:
Main text Theaetetus 151e-157e The three theses [+ the theory of perception]
Supplementary texts Protagoras 320d-328d, 333e-337c
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Week 4, Oct 23:
Main text Theaetetus 157e-171e dialogue with Protagoras
Supplementary texts Cratylus 439c-440e; Sophist 244b-249d
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Week 5, Oct 30:
Main text Theaetetus 177c-184c [taking the digression out of order] The
refutations of Protagoras and Heraclitus [+ anticipating the refutation of ‘knowledge
is perception’]
Supplementary texts Sophist 249d-252e; Euthydemus 283e-288b, 303a-304b
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READING WEEK
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Week 6, Nov 13:
Main text Theaetetus 171e-177c The digression
Supplementary text Republic 514a-521c
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Week 7, Nov 20:
Main text Theaetetus 184c-194b More on the refutation of ‘knowledge is
perception’; the puzzles about falsehood and the role of perception in falsehood
Supplementary texts Meno 79e-82a Republic 523a-525e; Timaeus 44d-47e,
65c-68e
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Week 8, Nov 27:
Main text Theaetetus 194b-200d The failure of falsehood: the wax tablet and the
aviary:
Supplementary texts Sophist 236e-239b Philebus 36e-40c
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Week 9, Dec 4:
Main text Theaetetus 200d- 202d True belief and knowledge; Socrates’ dream.
Supplementary texts Republic 476e-480a; Sophist 252e-255e
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Week 10, Dec 11:
Main text Theaetetus 202d-210d The accounts of account (the trickiness of
logos).
Supplementary text Republic 531a-534e
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