Topoi 31 (2):151-166 (
2012)
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Abstract
In this paper I explore a famous part of Plato’s
Theaetetus where Socrates develops various models of the
mind (picturing it first as a wax tablet and then as an aviary
full of specimen birds). These are to solve some puzzles
about how it is possible to make a mistake. On my interpretation,
defended here, the discussion of mistakes is no
digression, but is part of the refutation of Theaetetus’s
thesis that knowledge is “true doxa”. It reveals that false
doxa is possible only if there is a certain stock of abstract
knowledge, conceptual knowledge, that is not awareness of
the particular individual that is being described. The individual
must be identified under some description, or seen as
something of a certain kind. Error can only occur if the
description applied misdescribes the situation, but then if it
is to be applied falsely it must first have been known from
somewhere else. So knowledge cannot be reduced to the
application of descriptions to particulars, but is to be found
in the prior possession of abstract descriptions that can be
deployed in identifying particular individuals on the
ground.