JUSTIFIED KNOWLEDGE

Justified Knowledge

Introduction

The Theaetetus is a documentation of the dialogue between Socrates, Theaetetus, and Theodorus. Although there were a number of issues that were talked about, the thematic focus of the discourse centers on knowledge, what it is, and how it can be characterized without ambiguity. The major concern was to determine the nature of knowledge; this quest was steered by Socrates when he asked his co-discussants Theodorus and Theaetetus the fundamental question: what is knowledge? The attempt to answer this question led to the analysis of knowledge in the traditional sense. In this process, Socrates regarded himself as an intellectual midwife that helps those in the intellectual labor to birth their ideas. Meanwhile, an attempt is made by Theaetetus to define knowledge as perception, he puts it thus: “he who knows perceives what he knows, and, as far as I can see at present, knowledge is perception” (Lloyd & Pellegrin, 2003). But does this means that whatever cannot be perceived cannot be known? It is not the case.

Socrates gave an example of thinking as a human activity that provides evidence for the fact that knowledge goes beyond perception. This view expressed by Theaetetus is quite similar to that of Protagoras who sees knowledge strictly as a matter of individual perceptual experience. However, Socrates did not agree with Theaetetus on the definition of knowledge as perception which made him to probe further on the nature of knowledge. In this stead, he took it as his major task to engage in an exercise of dialectics through which he would apply the art of midwifery to deliver Theaetetus of his initial conceptions about knowledge.

On Knowledge as Perception

In the dialogical examination of the nature of knowledge as perception, Protagoras relativism was brought to the fore, especially his emphasis on man being the measure of all things - things that are and those that are not. Such relativism was not appealing to Socrates who interrogated his interlocutors further to ascertain the nature of knowledge which he thinks should be beyond the realm of perception. He believes that what perception as a medium of getting information from nature can give to us, at best, is sensual knowledge which does not give a full picture on the nature of knowledge (Hintikka, 2007).

Thus, he went all out to criticize the relativist position of Protagoras as ill-conceived because it would lead to conceptual pluralism on the ...