Summary:
The Theaetetus belongs to Plato’s later writing period. Besides being a monumental text, it is a great example of how to approach a subject through arguments and try to grasp its meaning. The subject in question is “What is Knowledge?” (ἐπιστήμῃ), where Socrates and Theaetetus discuss three possible definitions of it, without reaching a conclusion in the end.
I will attempt to give a short overview of the dialogue; namely the three definitions visited and then delve deeper into the last. This will involve three stages. First, an overview of selected scholars and what they have said on the matter. Second, an in depth analysis of each of the arguments Socrates uses to dispute the power of the definition. The last part is a summary of why the dialogue ends in an aporetic fashion, taking into consideration the main question of scholars: what type of knowledge is Socrates talking about? Therefore, in the last two parts will try to answer the subtitle of this thesis, “why does the third definition fall short?”. The first of the two does so through Socrates’ own words, where the second attempts to do so on a “meta-level”, through an interpretation of the text.
Keywords:
Plato, Socrates, Theaetetus, Knowledge Theory, Epistemology
