"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."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)


Work Title
Date
360-355 B.C.
Metaphor
"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."
Metaphor in Context
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)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Hamilton, E. and Cairns, H., Eds. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Bollingen Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.
Date of Entry
11/26/2005
Date of Review
03/20/2009

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.