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I have, however, availed myself of the learned labors of the editors of various dialogues of Plato; such as the edition of the Rivals, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, by Forster; of the First and Second Alcibiades and Hipparchus, by Etwall; of the Meno, First Alcibiades, Phaedo and Phaedrus, printed at Vienna, 1784; of the Cratylus and Theaetetus, by Fischer; of the Republic, by Massey; and of the Euthydemus and Gorgias, by Dr.
But there is no lengthened refutation of them. The Parmenides belongs to that stage of the dialogues of Plato in which he is partially under their influence, using them as a sort of 'critics or diviners' of the truth of his own, and of the Eleatic theories. In the Theaetetus a similar negative dialectic is employed in the attempt to define science, which after every effort remains undefined still.
It cannot therefore be the Good, which is an end. Knowledge is at its best when it is dealing with the eternal and immutable, but even then it is not self-sufficient it exists for the sake of something else, the good. This latter is characterised by symmetry, proportion and truth. Knowledge resembles it far more than even pure pleasure. The Theaetetus discusses more fully the theory of knowledge.
Thus after many preparations and oppositions, both of the characters of men and aspects of the truth, especially of the popular and philosophical aspect; and after many interruptions and detentions by the way, which, as Theodorus says in the Theaetetus, are quite as agreeable as the argument, we arrive at the great Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge.
Theaetetus died young, but we know enough of him to feel sure that he was one of the few great original mathematicians who have appeared in history. In the Timaeus the theory of the regular solids is used to get rid once more of the doctrine of four ultimate 'elements'. These, Timaeus says, are so far from being elements or letters of the alphabet, that they are not even syllables.
We come now to the time of Plato, and here the great names are Archytas, Theodoras of Cyrene, Theaetetus, and Eudoxus. He is said to have been the first to write a treatise on mechanics based on mathematical principles; on the practical side he invented a mechanical dove which would fly.
Shallower but more numerous and regular features of the same class radiate towards the N.E. from the foot of the opposite wall. On the N.W. are several curved ridges, all trending towards Theaetetus. On the S.E. the surface is trenched by a number of crossed gullies, well seen when the E. wall is on the morning terminator.
His very great contributions to the theory of knowledge will be passed over, as they are beginning to be well understood, and the Theaetetus in particular, with its sequel the Sophist, is more and more coming to occupy its rightful place as the best introduction to philosophy in general.
In the lowest subdivision, indeed, the word maieutic is a metaphor of another kind, fully explained in Plato's Theaetetus: the maieutic dialogues, however, were supposed to resemble giving the rudiments of the art; as the peirastic were, to represent a skirmish, or trial of proficiency; the endeietic were, it seems, likened to the exhibiting a specimen of skill; and the anatreptic, to presenting the spectacle of a thorough defeat, or sound drubbing.
Theodorus's proof was evidently not general; and it was reserved for Theaetetus to comprehend all these irrationals in one definition, and to prove the property generally as it is proved in Eucl. The solution, attributed to Plato, of the problem of the two mean proportionals by means of a frame resembling that which a shoemaker uses to measure a foot, can hardly be his.
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