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The Aviary Simile in the Theaetetus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The following remarks on the aviary simile have been prompted by Professor Hackforth's article in C.Q. January 1938, pp. 27 ff., in which he in turn comments on certain points in Professor Cornford's treatment in his Plato's Theory of Knowledge.
Commenting on 199c–d C. (137) suggests that P.'s criticism in that passage might be met by the inclusion in the aviary of ‘complex objects such as the “sum of 7 and 5”.… It is this object (sc. the complex object “the sum of 7 and 5”) that I identify with 11 when I make my false judgement.… False judgement can be explained as the wrong putting together of two pieces of knowledge’—i.e. 11 and ‘the sum of 7 and 5’. C. (138) further suggests that P. has overlooked this possibility because he persists in speaking as if we judged not ‘that the sum of 7 and 5 is 11’ but that ‘12 (the number we are seeking) is 11 (the number we lay hold of)’. H. replies that this criticism of C.'s is not valid because P. understands the knowledge of 11 and 12 to include a knowledge of the various sums that make up these numbers. There could, therefore, be no ‘question of “putting together” such a piece of knowledge as 7 + 5 = 12 with a different piece of knowledge, viz. the knowledge of 12. They are not different pieces; they are the same piece.’
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References
page 208 note 1 Cf. 199c 10; and see C. 137 and H.
page 209 note 1 ‘The misleading statement that “we judge 12 in our waxen block to be 11” is a consequence of the too narrow use of “know” in terms of that image.’ C. 130.
page 209 note 2 A. wavers between two views, and fuses them in the phrase at 16b10 κα⋯ ⋯ε⋯ τ⋯ν καθ' ⋯τ⋯ρоν λεγоμ⋯νων σημεῖ⋯ν ⋯оτι <sc. τ⋯ ῥ⋯μα>.
page 210 note 1 If it was not already a commonplace in Plato's day; he introduces it in the Cratylus 421e, 425a, without explanation.
page 210 note 2 Cf. Cratylus 425a, where P. speaks of putting together (σνντιθ⋯ναι) a sentence ⋯κ τ⋯ν ⋯νоμ⋯των κα⋯ ῥημ⋯των.
page 210 note 3 It is perhaps worth noting that in the wax-block simile, which is similar to the aviary in many ways, the only examples of impressions that are given (memory-image of Socrates, etc., 193b; concepts or notions of man and number 195d–196a) may fairly be called νо⋯ματα in the sense defined.
page 210 note 4 Plato is in fact probably thinking of ‘some classification of the objects of knowledge’ (C. 132). But his words suggest that he would not have regarded such a linking or grouping of νо⋯ματα (birds) as impossible.
page 211 note 1 The change would have to occur between 199d and 199e.
page 211 note 2 Note how careful P. is at 199e to keep ψενδ⋯δоζ⋯ξειν separate from ⋯νεπιστημоσ⋯νη C. (138) considers that these words practically state that by ⋯νεπιστημоσ⋯νη P. simply means false belief. It seems to me that P. keeps the two distinct, and says that false belief is the result of but not the same thing as ⋯νεπιστημоσ⋯νη.
page 211 note 3 ⋯π⋯ τ⋯ν πρώτην π⋯ρεσμεν ⋯πоρ⋯αν 200a 11–12, referring, I take it, to 190b ff., and to 196b 5 ff., the starting-point of the simile.