Class 7 - Wax tablets and bird houses.
Today’s class
In today’s class, we’re going to look at some final objections to the idea that knowledge is true belief! We’ll be talking about wax tablets (which were used for writing in ancient Greece), birdhouses, and lawyers!
Today, we’ll look at the text in more detail, and then we’ll end the session with a broader discussion of the arguments so far.
Writing exercise
How does Plato’s Theaetetus make you feel? Excited? Bored? Angry? Frustrated? Intrigued?
- Write for five minutes in response to this question.
We’ll bracket and share.
The Wax Tablet
Socrates proposes that we know things because they are perceived, and leave imprints in the soul, like a tablet of wax. This gives us something stable (the impression in our mind) against which to measure our changing perceptions.
Let’s say, then, that it is a gift from Memory, mother of the Muses, and that we imprint on it whatever we wish to remember from among the things we see or hear or the thoughts we ourselves have, holding it under our perceptions and thoughts as if we were making impressions from signet rings; whatever is imprinted on the block, we remember and know for as long as its image is in the wax, while whatever is wiped off or proves incapable of being imprinted we have forgotten and do not know. (191d5-e1)
Some questions
- What are the advantages of this account of knowledge?
- According to this account, what is a false belief?
- What are the problems with this account? Where does it fall down?
Again, Sophie-Grace Chappell’s long essay on this is useful here.
Perceptions and Impressions
The wax tablet model tells us that false belief is a mismatch between fleeting perceptions and stable impressions, or between perception and thought.
There are these kinds of false beliefs. But what about false beliefs that do not depend on perception? For example, false beliefs about the sum of the angles of a triangle. These simply do not fit the model, so the model has to go!
The Aviary
Now things get quite wild, as Socrates talks about knowledge being like birds, flying around in the vast aviary or birdhouse of your soul.
We’ve been working too hard, so let’s have a break to listen to this song by the band They Might be Giants.
After the break, write in response to this question:
- If there is a little birdhouse in your soul, what birds are flying around in there…?
More on the Aviary
The argument here goes like this. Bits of knowledge are like birds flying around in your mind or your soul. You don’t really fully possess these birds. They’re wild animals! But they’re there ready for you to grab.
Sometimes, however, you grab the wrong one. That’s when you get a false belief.
Some more questions
- What are the advantages of this account of false belief?
- According to this account, what is a false belief?
- What are the problems with this account? Where does it fall down?
Again, Sophie-Grace Chappell’s long essay on this is useful here.
Problems in the Birdhouse
What’s the problem here? This attempts to solve the problem by distinguishing between knowledge we have and knowledge we use. False belief is mis-use of knowledge that we have.
But what are these bits (birds) of knowledge? In what sense is grabbing the wrong one having a bit of knowledge? It’s like getting hold of knowledge, and this leading to us not knowing, which is weird!
Saving the birdhouse
To address this, Theaetetus adds another plot twist: some birds might not be birds of knowledge, but birds of ignorance.
But how can we distinguish between (birds of) knowledge and ignorance? This leads us back the problem that we set out to answer in the first place: what is knowledge, and what is ignorance. If we’re trying to answer it by referring to a distinction between knowing and ignorance, we’re caught in circularity.
Lawyers
Here’s a final objection. Unlike philosophers, lawyers are working against the clock. They need to make their audience believe things that are true, without the audience actually knowing that these things are true.
They lead their audience to true beliefs, but not to knowledge. Therefore, knowledge and true belief cannot be the same.
Discussion
- Discuss the wax tablet, the aviary and the case of the lawyers in your groups.
- Talk about what you don’t understand, and share what you do understand.
- Which arguments, in your view, are strongest, and which are weakest?
Next time
After giving up on the idea that knowledge is true belief, Theaetetus will move on to claiming something else: that knowledge is true belief with an account.
Homework
For your homework, I want you to read reading 4. This is a little bit shorter than the previous reading! As usual, respond on Canvas!