Sin título

KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION IN PLATO

one man is as wise as another, Socrates suggests, on behalf of
Protagoras, a very interesting answer, namely that, while one
judgment cannot be truer than another, it can be better, in the
sense of having better consequences. This suggests pragmatism. 1

This answer, however, though Socrates has invented it, does

not satisfy him. He urges, for example, that when a doctor fore-
tells the course of my illness, he actually knows more of my future
than I do. And when men differ as to what it is wise for the State
to decree, the issue shows that some men had a greater knowledge
as to the future than others had. Thus we cannot escape the
conclusion that a wise man is a better measure of things than a fool.
All these are objections to the doctrine that each man is the
measure of all things, and only indirectly to the doctrine that
"knowledge" means "perception," in so far as this doctrine leads
to the other. There is, however, a direct argument, namely that
memory must be allowed as well as perception. This is admitted,
and to this extent the proposed definition is amended.
We come next to criticisms of the doctrine of Heraclitus. This
is first pushed to extremes, in accordance, we are told, with the
practice of his disciples among the bright youths of Ephesus. A
thing may change in two ways, by locomotion, and by a change of
quality, and the doctrine of flux is held to state that everything
is always changing in both respects. 2 And not only is everything
always undergoing some qualitative change, but everything is
always changing all its qualities so, we are told, clever people
think at Ephesus. This has awkward consequences. We cannot
say "this is white," for if it was white when we began speaking it
will have ceased to be white before we end our sentence. We
cannot be right in saying we are seeing a thing, for seeing is
perpetually changing into not-seeing.* If everything is changing

1 It was presumably thit passage that first suggested to F. C. S. Schiller

his admiration of Protagoras.

1 It seems that neither Plato nor the dynamic youths of Ephesus had
noticed that locomotion is impossible on the extreme Heraclitean doctrine.
Motion demands that a given thing A should be now here, now there : it
must remain the tame thing while it moves. In the doctrine that Plato
examines there is change of quality and change of place, but not change
of substance. In this respect, modern quantum physics goes further than
the most extreme di^iples of Heraclitus went in Plato's time. Plato \\ould
have thought this fatal to science, but it has not proved so.
* Compaq* the advertisement: "That's Shell, that was. 9

173

WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

in every kind of way, seeing has no right to be called seeing rather
than not-seeing, or perception to be called perception rather than
not-perception. And when we say "perception is knowledge," we
might just as well say "perception is not-knowledge."

What the above argument amounts to is that, whatever else

may be in perpetual flux, the meanings of words must be fixed,
at least for a time, since otherwise no assertion is definite, and no
assertion is true rather than false. There must be something more
or less constant, if discourse and knowledge are to be possible.
This, I think, should be admitted. But a great deal of flux is
compatible with this admission.
Página 1
 Sin título
There is, at this point, a refusal to discuss Parmenides, on the
ground that he is too great and grand. He is a "reverend and
awfiil figure." "There was a sort of depth in him that was alto-
gether noble." He is "one being whom I respect above all." In
these remarks Plato shows his love for a static universe, and his
dislike of the Heraclitean flux which he has been admitting for
the sake of argument. But after this expression of reverence he
abstains from developing the Parmenidean alternative to I leraclitus.
We now reach Plato's final argument against the identification
of knowledge with perception. He begins by pointing out that we
perceive through eyes and ears, rather than with them, and he goes
on to point out that some of our knowledge is not connected with
any sense-organ. We can know, for instance, that sounds and
colours are unlike, though no organ of sense can perceive both.
There is no special organ for "existence and non-existence, like-
ness and unlikeness, sameness and differences, and also unity and
numbers in general." The same applies to honourable and dis-
honourable, and good and bad. "The mind contemplates some
things through its own instrumentality, others through the bodily
faculties." We perceive hard and soft through touch, but it is the
mind that judges that they exist and that they are contraries. Only
the mind can reach existence, and we cannot reach truth if we do
not reach existence. It follows that we cannot know things through
the senses alone, since through the senses alone we cannot know
that things exist. Therefore knowledge consists in reflection, not
in impressions, and perception is not knowledge, because it "has
no part in apprehending truth, since it has none in apprehending
existence."

7*o disentangle what can be accepted from what must be rejected

*74

KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION IN PLATO

in this argument against the identification of knowledge with

perception is by no means easy. There are three inter-connected
theses that Plato discusses, namely:

(1) Knowledge is perception;

(2) Man is the measure of all things;

(3) Everything is in a state of flux.

(i) The first of these, with which alone the argument is pri-
marily concerned, is hardly discussed on its own account except
in the final passage with which we have just been concerned.
Here it is argued that comparison, knowledge of existence, and
understanding of number, are essential to knowledge, but cannot
be included in perception since they are not effected through
any sense-organ. The things to be said about these are different.
Let us begin with likeness and unlikeness.

That two shades of colour, both of which I am seeing, are

similar or dissimilar as the case may be, is something which I,
for my part, should accept, not indeed as a "percept," but as a
"judgment of perception. 11 A percept, I should say, is not know-
ledge, but merely something that happens, and that belongs
equally to the world of physics and to the world of psychology.
We naturally think of perception, as Plato does, as a relation
between a percipient and an object: we say "I see a table." But
here "I" and "table" are logical constructions. The core of crude
occurrence is merely certain patches of colour. These are asso-
ciated with images of touch, they may cause words, and they may
Página 2
 Sin título
become a source of memories. The percept as filled out with
images of touch becomes an "object," which is supposed physical;
the percept as filled out with words and memories becomes a
"perception," which is part of a "subject" and is considered
mental. The percept is just an occurrence, and neither true nor
false; the percept as filled out with words is a judgment, and
capable of truth or falsehood. This judgment I call a "judgment
of perception." The proposition "knowledge is perception" must
be interpreted as meaning "knowledge is judgments of perception."
It is only in this form that it is grammatically capable of being
correct.

To return to likeness and unlikeness, it is quite possible, when

I perceive two colours simultaneously, for their likeness or unlike-
ness to be part of the datum, and to be asserted in a judgment of

175

WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

perception. Plato's argument that we have no sense-organ for
perceiving likeness and unlikeness ignores the cortex, and assumes
that all sense-organs must be at the surface of the body.

The argument for including likeness and unlikeness as possible

perceptive data is as follows. Let us assume that we see two shades
of colour A and B, and that we judge "A is like B." Let us assume
further, as Plato does, that such a judgment is in general correct,
and, in particular, is correct in the case we are considering. There
is, then, a relation of likeness between A and B, and not merely
a judgment on our part asserting likeness. If there were only our
judgment, it would be an arbitrary judgment, incapable of truth
or falsehood. Since it obviously is capable of truth or falsehood,
the likeness can subsist between A and B, and cannot be merely
something "mental." The judgment "A is like B" is true (if it is
true) in virtue of a "fact," just as much as the judgment "A is
red" or "A is round." The mind is no wore involved in the per-
ception of likeness than in the perception of colour.

I come now to existence^ on which Plato lays great stress. We

have, he says, as regards sound and colour, a thought which
includes both at once, namely that they exist. Existence belongs
to everything, and is among the things that the mind apprehends
by itself; without reaching existence, it is impossible to reach
truth.
The argument against Plato here is quite different from that
in the case of likeness and unlikeness. The argument here is that
all that Plato says about existence is bad grammar, or rather bad
syntax. This point is important, not only in connection with
Plato, but also with other matters such as the ontological argument
for the existence of the Deity.
Suppose you say to a child "lions exist, but unicorns don't,"
you can prove your point so far as lions are concerned by taking
him to the Zoo and saying "look, that's a lion." You will not,
unless you are a philosopher, add: "And you can sec that that
exists." If, being a philosopher, you do add this, you are uttering
nonsense. To say "lions exist" means "there are lions," i.e. " 'x
is a lion' is true for a suitable #." But we cannot say of the suitable
x that it "exists"; we can only apply this verb to a description,
complete or incomplete. "Lion" is an incomplete description,
because it applies to many objects: "The largbst lion in the Zoo"
is complete, because it applies to only one object.

176
Página 3
 Sin título

KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION IN PLATO

Now suppose that I am looking at a bright red patch. I may
say "this is my present percept"; I may also say "my present
percept exists"; but I must not say "this exists/' because the
word "exists" is only significant when applied to a description
as opposed to a name. 1 This disposes of existence as one of the
things that the mind is aware of in objects.

I come now to understanding of numbers. Here there are two

very different things to be considered : on the one hand, the pro-
positions of arithmetic, and on the other hand, empirical pro-
positions of enumeration. "2 + 2 = 4" is of the former kind; "I
have ten fingers" is of the latter.
I should agree with Plato that arithmetic, and pure mathematics
generally, is not derived from perception. Pure mathematics con-
sists of tautologies, analogous to "men are men," but usually
more complicated. To know that a mathematical proposition is
correct, we do not have to study the world, but only the meanings
of the symbols ; and the symbols, when we dispense with definitions
(of which the purpose is merely abbreviation), are found to be
such words as "or" and "not," and "all" and "some," which do
not, like "Socrates," denote anything in the actual world. A
mathematical equation asserts that two groups of symbols have
the same meaning; and so long as we confine ourselves to pure
mathematics, this meaning must be one that can be understood
without knowing anything about what can be perceived. Mathe-
matical truth, therefore, is, as Plato contends, independent of
perception ; but it is truth of a very peculiar sort, and is concerned
only with symbols.

Propositions of enumeration, such as "I have ten fingers," are

in quite a different category, and are obviously, at least in part,
dependent on perception. Clearly the concept "finger" is abstracted
from perception; but how about the concept "ten"? Here we
may seem to have arrived at a true universal or Platonic idea. We
cannot say that "ten" is abstracted from perception, for any
percept which can be viewed as ten of some kind of thing can
equally well be viewed otherwise. Suppose I give the name
"digitary" to all the fingers of one hand taken together; then I
can say "I have two digitaries," and this describes the same fact
of perception as I formerly described by the help of the number
ten. Thus in the statement "I have ten fingers" perception plays
1 On this subject see the last chapter of the present work.
177

WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

a smaller part, and conception a larger part, than in such a
statement as "this is red." The matter, however, is only one of
degree.
The complete answer, as regards propositions in which the
word "ten" occurs, is that, when these propositions are correctly
analysed, they are found to contain no constituent corresponding
to the word "ten." To explain this in the case of such a large
number as ten would be complicated ; let us, therefore, substitute
"I have two hands." This means:
"There is an a such that there is a b such that a and b are not
identical and whatever x may be, l x is a hand of mine* is true
Página 4
 Sin título
when, and only when, x is a or x is 6."
Here the word "two" does not occur. It is true that two letters
a and b occur, but we do not need to know that they are two, any
more than we need to know that they are black, or white, or
whatever colour they may happen to be.

Thus numbers are, in a certain precise sense, formal. The facts

which verify various propositions asserting that various collections
each have two members, have in common, not a constituent, but
a form. In this they differ from propositions about the Statue of
Liberty, or the moon, or George Washington. Such propositions
refer to a particular portion of space-time; it is this that is in
common between all the statements that can be made about the
Statue of Liberty. But there is nothing in common among pro-
positions "there are two so-and-so's" except a common form.
The relation of the symbol "two" to the meaning of a proposition
in which it occurs is far more complicated than the relation of the
symbol "red" to the meaning of a proposition in which it occurs.
We may say, in a certain sense, that the symbol "two" means
nothing, for, when it occurs in a true statement, there is no
corresponding constituent in the meaning of the statement. We
may continue, if we like, to say that numbers are eternal, im-
mutable, and so on, but we must add that they are logical fictions.

There is a further point. Concerning sound and colour, Plato

says "both together are two, and each of them is erne." We have
considered the two\ now we must consider the one. There is here
a mistake very analogous to that concerning existence. The pre-
dicate "one" is not applicable to things, but only to unit classes.
We can say "the earth has one satellite," bdt it is a syntactical
error to say "the moon is one." For what can such an assertion

Página 5