Dialogue

 1 Intro|      have analyzed the nature of perception, or traced the connexion
 2 Intro|        by three stages, in which perception, opinion, reasoning are
 3 Intro|            Knowledge is sensible perception.’ This is speedily identified
 4 Intro|       supposed to reply that the perception may be true at any given
 5 Intro|         for an instant? Sensible perception, like everything else, is
 6 Intro|        All knowledge is sensible perception’? (b) Would he have based
 7 Intro|     answer is, that knowledge is perception.’ ‘That is the theory of
 8 Intro|        Thus feeling, appearance, perception, coincide with being. I
 9 Intro|   madness and dreaming, in which perception is false; and half our life
10 Intro|        time. But if knowledge is perception, how can we distinguish
11 Intro|  combination of them a different perception. Take myself as an instance:—
12 Intro|    Theaetetus that “Knowledge is perception,” have all the same meaning.
13 Intro|       that knowledge is sensible perception? Yet perhaps we are crowing
14 Intro|          patient together with a perception, and the patient ceases
15 Intro|       says that ‘knowledge is in perception,’ with what does he perceive?
16 Intro|          have a common centre of perception, in which they all meet.
17 Intro|          the touch, of which the perception is given at birth to men
18 Intro|  reflection and experience. Mere perception does not reach being, and
19 Intro|          if so, knowledge is not perception. What then is knowledge?
20 Intro|    perceive the other; or has no perception or knowledge of either—all
21 Intro|      knowledge may exist without perception, and perception without
22 Intro|          without perception, and perception without knowledge. I may
23 Intro|        knew you both, and had no perception of either; or if I knew
24 Intro|     there could be no error when perception and knowledge correspond.~
25 Intro|        of the elements, viz. (3) perception of difference.~For example,
26 Intro| Theaetetus, knowledge is neither perception nor true opinion, nor yet
27 Intro|      that ‘Knowledge is sensible perception,’ may be assumed to be a
28 Intro|      knowledge to be the same as perception.’ We may now examine these
29 Intro|        is sensation, or sensible perception, by which Plato seems to
30 Intro|      that ‘Knowledge is sensible perception’ is the antithesis of that
31 Intro|       doctrine that knowledge is perception supplies or seems to supply
32 Intro|          was the absoluteness of perception. Like Socrates, he seemed
33 Intro|         in any higher sense than perception. For ‘truer’ or ‘wiser’
34 Intro|          no analysis of sensible perception such as Plato attributes
35 Intro|        and therefore no sensible perception, nor any true word by which
36 Intro|     something more than sensible perception;—this alone would not distinguish
37 Intro|      doctrine that ‘Knowledge is perception,’ we now proceed to look
38 Intro|       and that ‘All knowledge is perception.’ This was the subjective
39 Intro|  language were stripped off, the perception of outward objects alone
40 Intro|          sense there is a latent perception of space, of which we only
41 Intro|       one; or, in other words, a perception and also a conception. So
42 Intro|    intensity or largeness of the perception, or on the strength of some
43 Intro|         knowledge increases, our perception of the mind enlarges also.
44  Thea|         at present, knowledge is perception.~SOCRATES: Bravely said,
45  Thea|        You say that knowledge is perception?~THEAETETUS: Yes.~SOCRATES:
46  Thea|  THEAETETUS: Yes.~SOCRATES: Then perception is always of existence,
47  Thea|        now apply his doctrine to perception, my good friend, and first
48  Thea|        contend that knowledge is perception, or that to every man what
49  Thea|          produce sweetness and a perception of sweetness, which are
50  Thea|     simultaneous motion, and the perception which comes from the patient
51  Thea|           as I myself become not perception but percipient?~THEAETETUS:
52  Thea|         shall ever have the same perception, for another object would
53  Thea|        object would give another perception, and would make the percipient
54  Thea|        course.~SOCRATES: Then my perception is true to me, being inseparable
55  Thea| affirming that knowledge is only perception; and the meaning turns out
56  Thea|      that, given these premises, perception is knowledge. Am I not right,
57  Thea|       way will be to ask whether perception is or is not the same as
58  Thea|     perceiving, and is not sight perception?~THEAETETUS: True.~SOCRATES:
59  Thea|          that which he sees; for perception and sight and knowledge
60  Thea|     assertion that knowledge and perception are one, involves a manifest
61  Thea|         knowledge is the same as perception.~THEAETETUS: True.~SOCRATES:
62  Thea|          mark when he identified perception and knowledge. And therefore
63  Thea|         patient, together with a perception, and that the patient ceases
64  Thea|    hearing, or any other kind of perception? Is there any stopping in
65  Thea|     not-seeing, nor of any other perception more than of any non-perception,
66  Thea|     Certainly not.~SOCRATES: Yet perception is knowledge: so at least
67  Thea|          allow that knowledge is perception, certainly not on the hypothesis
68  Thea|       answered that knowledge is perception?~THEAETETUS: I did.~SOCRATES:
69  Thea|        both of them, this common perception cannot come to you, either
70  Thea|          will you assign for the perception of these notions?~THEAETETUS:
71  Thea|         given to them?~SOCRATES: Perception would be the collective
72  Thea|   THEAETETUS: No.~SOCRATES: Then perception, Theaetetus, can never be
73  Thea|      proved to be different from perception.~SOCRATES: But the original
74  Thea|     longer seek for knowledge in perception at all, but in that other
75  Thea|         him does not accord with perception—that was the case put by
76  Thea|     knowledge coincides with his perception, he will never think him
77  Thea|          whom coincides with his perception—for that also was a case
78  Thea|       having some other sensible perception of both, I fail in holding
79  Thea|       SOCRATES: When, therefore, perception is present to one of the
80  Thea|      fits the seal of the absent perception on the one which is present,
81  Thea|          in union of thought and perception? Yes, I shall say, with
82  Thea|      letters are only objects of perception, and cannot be defined or
83  Thea|        right opinion implies the perception of differences?~THEAETETUS: