Talk:Theaetetus (dialogue)

Date?

A previous version of this page contained the sentence, "The Theætetus is a dialogue by Plato thought to have taken place in the year 369 B.C." This is ambiguous, at best. Most everyone knows that Socrates died in 399 B.C.E. How then can something involving him have taken place in 369 B.C.? If the writer meant that the dialogue was written or published in that year he should have said so (and he no doubt does, because scholars really do think it was written in this year). So, I changed it. --Uroshnor 11:39, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The original remark was correct: the dialogue takes place at Theaetetus' death, probably in 369 B.C.E. Euclides had written down the conversation that forms the bulk of the dialogue (which occurred just before Socrates' death), and has it read when he hears that Theaetetus was mortally wounded. I'll clarify the article along these lines. -RJC 01:18, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Move request

See Category_talk:Dialogues_of_Plato. The page for the mathematician basically states that the majority of info on him comes from the Platonic work. I would like to move this page to Theaetetus and then merge the other page with it. --Girolamo Savonarola 04:32, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 14:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Spelling of Theaetetus

So is the name of the dialogue "Theaetetus" or "Theætetus"? Or is the difference too insignificant to care about? I only ask becuase the title of the article uses the former form, while the first sentence employs the latter. —Larry V (talk) 05:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Exact date of Socrates' death

Is there any information on the approximate date in regards to the death of Socrates? Its difficult to write up on this man when the only reference of time to his death is 399 B.C.E. Jimbo

Rewrite

Did a major rewrite on this,Brenda maverick 04:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC) bringing out the human, comical, analogical elements.

Original research in the "Subtextual Interpretation" section

Aside from its truly hideous title, the "Subtextual Interpretation" section is problematic because it makes interpretive statements without giving any citations to secondary scholarship. I feel quite sure that the interpretation given is the idiosyncratic view of the editor who wrote it, rather than a widely held view in scholarship, but if I am wrong, it should certainly not be difficult to give references, following the example of WP:CITE and WP:FOOTNOTE. I have posted an {{Original research}} template on Charmides (dialogue) and Protagoras (dialogue), which also have sections bizarrely entitled "subtextual interpretation". --Akhilleus (talk) 04:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The section "rhetorical structure" seems to be a replacement for the now-deleted "Subtextual interpretation" section; it suffers from the same problem of presenting an interpretation of the dialogue with no reference to secondary sources. 20:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This section contains information which contradicts with Routledge History of Philosophy vol I (p324, 325), where it’s stated that in any given dialogue Plato only allows the persona of Socrates what he (Plato ) considers true . (Vlastos) Marc j (talk) 15:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Enormous philosophical implications of writing wikipedia article about the Theatetus (Apology about previous title of this entry)

see above —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.222.114.224 (talk • contribs).

The comment by 141.222.114.224 is uncomfortably close to a personal attack, and I don't think it's a good way to improve the article. Why don't we discuss specific problems within the article instead? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I apoligise to ms. Mavrick for for my indecency. I have had little experience writting articles in the open source format. It is much a dialectic as content of theTheatetus itself. And I have commited a failure of frustration much like that of Nicias from the Laches dialog. I wish only for only a through explication of the dialog.

please cite sources on dramatic frame

141.222.114.224, in your recent edit you hint at, without further explanation, the importance of the dramatic form of this dialogue, and say " a positive conclusion, as posited by many scholars, is evident if the dramatic form of the dialog is taken into account." I agree with you, but we can't have the phrase 'many scholars' without citation. The positive conclusion is teased out by noting that Plato frames the dialogue as an imperfect recollection of a recollection of a conversation separated by time and distance. Tie this in with other dialogues such as the Meno and you have Platonic knowledge as recollection. Not recollection as the type of imperfect recollection that Plato demonstrates with the dramatic, written, copy-of-a-copy form, but that of the Ideas. One source supporting the importance of the dramatic frame is W.A. Johnson, "Dramatic Frame and Philosophic Idea in Plato", American Journal of Philology, 199 (1998), p. 585-586. Zeusnoos 19:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

--Agreed. Although I have reservations about the comments regarding 'dramatic form' my self. I feel that It is merely in interpretation of the dialog. Although it is, in my option the strongest, there are many others (that it is genuinely aporetic, or it could be lumped into the revisionist category.) Claiming that the dramatic form elucidates a positive conclusion is generally a hypothesis attributed to unitarian school. So I even wonder if it appropriate to put mere theses in the wiki. If not, I would cite it using Chappell's "Reading Plato's theaetetus" what are your opinions about this problem?

Haven't read Chapell's work myself, but I can see from the Amazon sample pages that it is a good source and should be referenced in this article. Perhaps you could take a crack at the unitarian vs revisionist debate. Lately, all of these dialogue articles are taking the form of a single unsourced interpretation rather than a description of known interpretations. Thanks. Zeusnoos 21:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Overall layout of article

I think there should be specific sections for each of the three definitions. The sections that exist now have important philosophical content but are somewhat disorganized. Any opinions?

Possible structure;

The Framing/ D0-proof that knowledge is not example/ D1- knowledge is perception/ Refutation/ Philosophical Digression/ D2- knowledge is true judgment/ Refutation/ D30 knowledge is true judgment with an account/ Refutation/

Epistemology

Right now the article is rather facile, and gives very little information regarding why this may be considered Plato's most important dialog on epistemology. SunSw0rd 15:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is completely abysmal right now, and looking at the history I see we have one "Brenda Maverick" to thank for that. Brenda apparently has absolutely no interest in the philosophical aspects of the Theaetetus. I also see that she likes to revert articles back to what she thinks are her words of genius, so there's basically no point in working on this article. I think Wikipedia is becoming worse over time. Ricaud (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure we have to attack editors by name, especially as that editor hasn't made any contributions to Wikipedia since April, 2007. If you have sourced improvements to make to the article, by all means do so! RJC ^{Talk Contribs} 19:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I already did work on the article quite some time ago, building on good work others had done, and it was all undone. Same on everything else I've ever done on WP. What's the point? Looking at one travesty after another of "philosophy" articles on WP (like that awful "a priori and a posteriori" article) has completely destroyed my faith in this process. The good editors, like Akhilleus, simply can't overcome the obstacles they face. Ricaud (talk) 04:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

If everyone thinks that the article has deteriorated since the version of a particular date, it makes sense to revert to that earlier version, and then make improvements to that version. Maybe we should revert back to, say, this. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I need to agree here, 'completely abysmal' could also be replaced with 'offensive to epistemologists' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.48.175 (talk) 22:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

accuracy of information

in the First paragragh of this article in the last line "Euclides' book is read aloud to the two men by a slave boy in the employ of Euclides."

I question this line because, I believe it would have been extremely uncommon for a 'slave boy' to be able to read in this time period' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greataussiepie (talk • contribs) 07:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Socrates conclusion

"knowledge is nothing but sense perception" = "man is the measure of all things", OK, this isn't the place for discussion but I will nonetheless. Protagoras' standpoint is more that of an a priori idealist and the boy Theaetetus' is purely atomistic: empirical, they appear, far from identical as Socrates says, but rather as opposites to me. Knowing relying purely on "Sense perception" admits an outside a posteriori foundation of all empirical criterion. Whereas "Man being the measure of all things" is solipsist and admits nothing that is not immanent and a priori to the individual knowledge. They are opposites rather than identical. 4.255.52.106 (talk) 19:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

English translation

The Wikipedia article may have some discrepancies due to faulty translations of Theaetetus. In Theaetetus 151e, the English translation states that "knowledge is perception." However, the original Greek seems to state that "knowledge is sensation." In the same section (151e), and also in 210b, there is mention of "wind eggs." In the Greek, there is no mention of eggs, only of "windy things." A reader of translations must be careful not to think that Plato’s words are correctly presented.173.72.115.21 (talk) 18:32, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Simon Einfach

"wind eggs"?

What does this mean? Farts? Is there a source somewhere regarding what the meaning is of this very odd translation? Odbwu0c (talk) 05:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)