if I
make a mistake, you will doubtless correct me.

SOCRATES: We will, if we can.

THEAETETUS: Then, I think that the sciences which I learn from
Theodorus--geometry, and those which you just now mentioned--are
knowledge; and I would include the art of the cobbler and other
craftsmen; these, each and all of, them, are knowledge.

SOCRATES: Too much, Theaetetus, too much; the nobility and liberality of
your nature make you give many and diverse things, when I am asking for
one simple thing.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Perhaps nothing. I will endeavour, however, to explain what I
believe to be my meaning: When you speak of cobbling, you mean the art
or science of making shoes?

THEAETETUS: Just so.

SOCRATES: And when you speak of carpentering, you mean the art of making
wooden implements?

THEAETETUS: I do.

SOCRATES: In both cases you define the subject matter of each of the two
arts?

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: But that, Theaetetus, was not the point of my question: we
wanted to know not the subjects, nor yet the number of the arts or
sciences, for we were not going to count them, but we wanted to know the
nature of knowledge in the abstract. Am I not right?

THEAETETUS: Perfectly right.

SOCRATES: Let me offer an illustration: Suppose that a person were to
ask about some very trivial and obvious thing--for example, What is
clay? and we were to reply, that there is a clay of potters, there is
a clay of oven-makers, there is a clay of brick-makers; would not the
answer be ridiculous?

THEAETETUS: Truly.

SOCRATES: In the first place, there would be an absurdity in assuming
that he who asked the question would understand from our answer the
nature of 'clay,' merely because we added 'of the image-makers,' or of
any other workers. How can a man understand the name of anything, when
he does not know the nature of it?

THEAETETUS: He cannot.

SOCRATES: Then he who does not know what science or knowledge is, has no
knowledge of the art or science of making shoes?

THEAETETUS: None.

SOCRATES: Nor of any other science?

THEAETETUS: No.

SOCRATES: And when a man is asked what science or knowledge is, to
give in answer the name of some art or science is ridiculous; for the
question is, 'What is knowledge?' and he replies, 'A knowledge of this
or that.'

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: Moreover, he might answer shortly and simply, but he makes an
enormous circuit. For ex