Reading room

Theaetetus

Plato

Written shortly after the death of the mathematician Theaetetus (369 BC), to whom the prologue pays tribute. Socrates, who compares himself to a midwife of souls, examines three definitions of knowledge — perception, true judgement, true judgement with an account — and refutes them all, discussing on the way Protagorean relativism and Heraclitean flux. It contains the famous digression on the philosopher and the claim that philosophy begins in wonder.