theme,metaphor,work_id,dictionary,provenance,id,created_at,updated_at,reviewed_on,comments,text,context
"","""Imagine, then, for the sake of argument, that our minds contain a block of wax, which in this or that individual may be larger or smaller, and composed of wax that is comparatively pure or muddy, and harder in some, softer in others, and sometimes of just the right consistency.""",6414,Impressions,Reading,16913,2005-05-09 00:00:00 UTC,2010-01-06 16:29:19 UTC,2009-03-20,"","SOCRATES: Imagine, then, for the sake of argument, that our minds contain a block of wax, which in this or that individual may be larger or smaller, and composed of wax that is comparatively pure or muddy, and harder in some, softer in others, and sometimes of just the right consistency.
(191c-d, p. 897)",""
"","""When a person has what the poet's wisdom commends as a 'shaggy heart,' or when the block is muddy or made of impure wax, or oversoft or hard, the people with soft wax are quick to learn, but forgetful, those with hard wax the reverse.""",6414,Impressions,Reading,16916,2005-05-09 00:00:00 UTC,2010-01-06 16:33:09 UTC,2009-03-20,"","SOCRATES: When a person has what the poet's wisdom commends as a 'shaggy heart,' or when the block is muddy or made of impure wax, or oversoft or hard, the people with soft wax are quick to learn, but forgetful, those with hard wax the reverse. Where it is shaggy or rough, a gritty kind of stuff containing a lot of earth or dirt, the impressions obtained are indistinct; so are they too when the stuff is hard, for they have no depth. Impressions in soft wax also are indistinct, because they melt together and soon become blurred. And if, besides this, they overlap through being crowded together into some wretched little narrow mind, they are still more indistinct. All these types, then, are likely to judge falsely. When they see or hear or think of something, they cannot quickly assign things to their several imprints. Because they are so slow and sort things into the wrong places, they constantly see and hear and think amiss, and we say they are mistaken about things and stupid.
(194e-195b, p. 901)",""
"","""'Having' [knowledge] seems to me different from 'possessing.' If a man has bought a coat and owns it, but is not wearing it, we should say he possesses it without having it about him.""",6414,"","Reading Christopher Westbury and Daniel C. Dennett, ""Mining the Past to Construct the Future: Memory and Belief as Forms of Knowledge."" in Memory, Brain, and Belief. Ed. Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 2000): 15.",16917,2005-11-25 00:00:00 UTC,2010-10-02 17:53:23 UTC,2008-12-03,"","SOCRATES. 'Having' seems to me different from 'possessing.' If a man has bought a coat and owns it, but is not wearing it, we should say he possesses it without having it about him.
THEAETETUS. True.
SOCRATES. Now consider whether knowledge is a thing you can possess in that way without having it about you, like a man who has caught some wild birds--pigeons or what not--and keeps them in an aviary he has made for them at home. In a sense, of course, we might say he 'has' them all the time inasmuch as he possesses them, mightn't we?
THEAETETUS. Yes.
SOCRATES: But in another sense he 'has' none of them, though he has got control of them, now that he has made them captive in an enclosure of his own; he can take and have hold of them whenever he likes by catching any bird he chooses, and let them go again, and it is open to him to do that as often as he pleases.
(197b-197d, p. 904)",""
"","""Now consider whether knowledge is a thing you can possess in that way without having it about you, like a man who has caught some wild birds--pigeons or what not--and keeps them in an aviary he has made for them at home.""",6414,"","Reading Christopher Westbury and Daniel C. Dennett, ""Mining the Past to Construct the Future: Memory and Belief as Forms of Knowledge."" in Memory, Brain, and Belief. Ed. Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry. Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 2000. p. 15.",16918,2005-11-26 00:00:00 UTC,2010-10-02 17:56:13 UTC,2009-03-20,"","SOCRATES. 'Having' seems to me different from 'possessing.' If a man has bought a coat and owns it, but is not wearing it, we should say he possesses it without having it about him.
THEAETETUS. True.
SOCRATES. Now consider whether knowledge is a thing you can possess in that way without having it about you, like a man who has caught some wild birds--pigeons or what not--and keeps them in an aviary he has made for them at home. In a sense, of course, we might say he 'has' them all the time inasmuch as he possesses them, mightn't we?
THEAETETUS. Yes.
SOCRATES: But in another sense he 'has' none of them, though he has got control of them, now that he has made them captive in an enclosure of his own; he can take and have hold of them whenever he likes by catching any bird he chooses, and let them go again, and it is open to him to do that as often as he pleases.
(197b-197d, p. 903-4)",""
"","While having knowledge may be analogous to a man who ""has"" birds in an aviary, ""in another sense he 'has' none of them, though he has got control of them, now that he has made them captive in an enclosure of his own; he can take and have hold of them whenever he likes by catching any bird he chooses, and let them go again, and it is open to him to do that as often as he pleases.""",6414,"","Reading Christopher Westbury and Daniel C. Dennett, ""Mining the Past to Construct the Future: Memory and Belief as Forms of Knowledge."" in Memory, Brain, and Belief. Ed. Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry. Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 2000. p. 15.",16919,2005-11-26 00:00:00 UTC,2010-10-02 17:58:58 UTC,2009-03-20,"","SOCRATES. 'Having' seems to me different from 'possessing.' If a man has bought a coat and owns it, but is not wearing it, we should say he possesses it without having it about him.
THEAETETUS. True.
SOCRATES. Now consider whether knowledge is a thing you can possess in that way without having it about you, like a man who has caught some wild birds--pigeons or what not--and keeps them in an aviary he has made for them at home. In a sense, of course, we might say he 'has' them all the time inasmuch as he possesses them, mightn't we?
THEAETETUS. Yes.
SOCRATES: But in another sense he 'has' none of them, though he has got control of them, now that he has made them captive in an enclosure of his own; he can take and have hold of them whenever he likes by catching any bird he chooses, and let them go again, and it is open to him to do that as often as he pleases.
(197b-197d, p. 904)",""
"","""Once more then, just as a while ago we imagined a sort of waxen block in our minds, so now let us suppose that every mind contains a kind of aviary stocked with birds of every sort, some in flocks apart from the rest, some in small groups, and some solitary, flying in any direction among them all.""",6414,"",Reading,16920,2005-11-26 00:00:00 UTC,2010-10-02 18:01:40 UTC,2009-03-20,"","SOCRATES: Once more then, just as a while ago we imagined a sort of waxen block in our minds, so now let us suppose that every mind contains a kind of aviary stocked with birds of every sort, some in flocks apart from the rest, some in small groups, and some solitary, flying in any direction among them all.
THEAETETUS: Be it so. What follows?
SOCRATES: When we are babies we must suppose this receptacle empty, and take the birds to stand for pieces of knowledge. Whenever a person acquires any piece of knowledge and shuts it up in his enclosure, we must say he has learned or discovered the thing of which this is the knowledge, and that is what 'knowing' means.
THEAETETUS: Be it so.
SOCRATES: Now think of him hunting once more for any piece of knowledge that he wants, catching and holding it, and letting it go again. In what terms are we to describe that--the same that we used of the original process of acquisition, or different ones? An illustration may help you to see what I mean. There is a science you call 'arithmetic.'
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Conceive that, then, as a chase after pieces of knowledge about all the numbers, odd or even.
THEAETETUS: I will.
SOCRATES: That, I take it, is the science in virtue of which a man has in his control pieces of knowledge about numbers and can hand them over to someone else.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when he hands them over, we call it 'teaching,' and when the other takes them from him, that is 'learning,' and when he has them in the sense of possessing them in that aviary of his, that is 'knowing.'
(197e-198b, p. 904)",""
"","""When we are babies we must suppose this receptacle empty, and take the birds to stand for pieces of knowledge.""",6414,"",Reading,16921,2005-11-26 00:00:00 UTC,2010-10-02 18:03:07 UTC,2009-03-20,"","SOCRATES: Once more then, just as a while ago we imagined a sort of waxen block in our minds, so now let us suppose that every mind contains a kind of aviary stocked with birds of every sort, some in flocks apart from the rest, some in small groups, and some solitary, flying in any direction among them all.
THEAETETUS: Be it so. What follows?
SOCRATES: When we are babies we must suppose this receptacle empty, and take the birds to stand for pieces of knowledge. Whenever a person acquires any piece of knowledge and shuts it up in his enclosure, we must say he has learned or discovered the thing of which this is the knowledge, and that is what 'knowing' means.
THEAETETUS: Be it so.
SOCRATES: Now think of him hunting once more for any piece of knowledge that he wants, catching and holding it, and letting it go again. In what terms are we to describe that--the same that we used of the original process of acquisition, or different ones? An illustration may help you to see what I mean. There is a science you call 'arithmetic.'
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Conceive that, then, as a chase after pieces of knowledge about all the numbers, odd or even.
THEAETETUS: I will.
SOCRATES: That, I take it, is the science in virtue of which a man has in his control pieces of knowledge about numbers and can hand them over to someone else.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when he hands them over, we call it 'teaching,' and when the other takes them from him, that is 'learning,' and when he has them in the sense of possessing them in that aviary of his, that is 'knowing.'
(197e-198b, p. 904)",""
"","""Perhaps, Socrates, we were wrong in making the birds stand for pieces of knowledge only, and we ought to have imagined pieces of ignorance flying about with them in the mind.""",6414,"",Reading,16922,2005-11-26 00:00:00 UTC,2010-10-02 18:06:00 UTC,2009-03-20,•INTEREST. Theaetetus tries to adjust the analogy. Socrates points up the problem of the regress in having knowledge about knowledge (at citation's end) and makes fun of the metaphors of mind employed. ,"THEAETETUS: Perhaps, Socrates, we were wrong in making the birds stand for pieces of knowledge only, and we ought to have imagined pieces of ignorance flying about with them in the mind. Then, in chasing them, our man would lay hold sometimes of a piece of knowledge, sometimes of a piece of ignorance, and the ignorance would make him judge falsely, the knowledge truly, about the same thing.
SOCRATES: It is not easy to disapprove of anything you say, Theaetetus, but think again about your suggestion. Suppose it is as you say; then the man who lays hold of the piece of ignorance will judge falsely. Is that right?
THEAETETUS: Yes.SOCRATES: But of course he will not think he is judging falsely.
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
SOCRATES: No, he will think he is judging truly, and his attitude of mind will be the same as if he knew the thing he is mistaken about.
THEAETETUS: Naturally.
SOCRATES: So he will imagine that, as a result of his chase, he has got hold of a piece of knowledge, not a piece of ignorance.
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then we have gone a long way round only to find ourselves confronted once more with our original difficulty. Our destructive critic will laugh at us. You wonderful people, he will say, are we to understand that a man knows both a piece of knowledge and a piece of ignorance, and then supposes that one of these things he knows is the other which he also knows? Or does he know neither, and then judge that one of these unknown things is the other? Or does he know only one, and identify this known thing with the unknown one, or the unknown one with the known? Or are you going to tell me that there are yet further pieces of knowledge about your pieces of knowledge and ignorance, and that their owner keeps these shut up in yet another of your ridiculous aviaries or waxen blocks, knowing them so long as he possesses them, although he may not have them at hand in his mind? On that showing you will find yourselves perpetually driven round in a circle and never getting any further.
(199e-200c, pp. 906-7)",""
"","""For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.""",7193,"",Reading,19598,2012-02-29 15:03:30 UTC,2012-02-29 15:03:30 UTC,,"","I did not, however, give a complete exposition, nor did Dionysios ask for one. For he professed to know many, and those the most important, points, and to have a sufficient hold of them through instruction given by others. I hear also that he has since written about what he heard from me, composing what professes to be his own handbook, very different, so he says, from the doctrines which he heard from me; but of its contents I know nothing; I know indeed that others have written on the same subjects; but who they are, is more than they know themselves. Thus much at least, I can say about all writers, past or future, who say they know the things to which I devote myself, whether by hearing the teaching of me or of others, or by their own discoveries-that according to my view it is not possible for them to have any real skill in the matter. There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself. Yet this much I know-that if the things were written or put into words, it would be done best by me, and that, if they were written badly, I should be the person most pained. Again, if they had appeared to me to admit adequately of writing and exposition, what task in life could I have performed nobler than this, to write what is of great service to mankind and to bring the nature of things into the light for all to see? But I do not think it a good thing for men that there should be a disquisition, as it is called, on this topic-except for some few, who are able with a little teaching to find it out for themselves. As for the rest, it would fill some of them quite illogically with a mistaken feeling of contempt, and others with lofty and vain-glorious expectations, as though they had learnt something high and mighty. ",""
"","""Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is false and lifeless, or fertile and true.""",6414,"","Reading Margreta de Grazia’s ""Imprints: Shakespeare, Gutenberg, and Descartes,"" in Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005): 29-58, p. 32. ",22931,2013-10-07 19:34:52 UTC,2013-10-07 19:34:52 UTC,,"","Soc. Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is false and lifeless, or fertile and true. And again I resemble the midwives in being barren of wisdom, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to pronounce upon any subject myself, is very just--the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but has not allowed me to bring forth. I myself, then, am not particularly wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul. But of those who converse with me, some at first appear utterly stupid; and all, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite clear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they give birth are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery.
(150b-150d, p 244)",""