PHL200Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Wax Tablet, Wrong Impression, General Idea
Document Summary
Theaetetus recognises that it isn"t perceiving but the beliefs that perceiving engenders that matter. This leaves it open how belief is related to perceptions. If beliefs stem from perceptions, and knowledge is always of what is, then how could there ever be false beliefs. This remains as the challenge addressed at the second proposal of. Misidentification: when one sees theaetetus in the distance but mistakenly believe that he is socrates. Part of the problem seems to be that if you are acquainted with something then you are not mistaken about it. If we take the objections raised by some sophists: one cannot think of what is not, since then one is thinking of nothing. If one is not thinking of anything, then it is impossible to make a mistake. Since false belief is certainly possible, plato needs to find an intermediate path between one being directly acquainted with objects or being completely ignorant ignorant.
