Knowledge and wisdom: a reading of the digression in the Theaetetus

Abstract

The Theaetetus digression has attracted scholars in both its form and content. No final answer is given as to how we should read the digression. I propose another reading, which engages in the structural intricacies of the Theaetetus and its implications of the digression. To do so, I attend to Mitchell Miller's reading of the Republic and I show that the digression is in fact about the unity of mathematics and philosophy. The digression, I argue, naturally divides into two. Its first part corresponds to the ones who become philosophers on their own account, its second part corresponds to the ones the city educates in the Republic. The digression, therefore, neither portrays a caricature, nor is its flying philosopher the ideal of Platonism. The Socrates of the Theaetetus, I argue, looks for someone who will continue philosophy after him, and his directives to Theaetetus follow the direction of the Republic‘s curriculum toward dialectic.