Abstract

This chapter intends to explain knowledge according to the aviary model proposed in Plato’s Theaetetus (195c5-200d4), calling attention to the risk of employing some Aristotelian assumptions in its reading. In section 1, I claim that the argument is committed to provide an account on both conceptual mistakes (or false beliefs) and dispositional knowledge. In section 2, I show that the argument develops along three different cases: (i) the coat model introduces the distinction between having knowledge and using it, intermediated by the power of choice; (ii) the aviary model adds a variety of objects of knowledge as well as the power of ceasing to use them; (iii) the arithmetic model introduces an art of choosing among the objects of knowledge. This leads us to the description of dispositional knowledge as learning from oneself, i.e., as specification of items from previously known kinds. I show that this is incompatible with Aristotle’s notion of potential knowledge for three basic reasons: (i) it involves a power of selection of the right items, which would correspond to an Aristotelian rational power and not to the activation of a potential knowledge; (ii) it involves individuation of items learnt in general and not simply the update of a latent item of memory; (iii) it involves inquiry and learning, and not simply knowing. In section 3, I turn to the reason Socrates gives to dismiss the model: that the knowledge of an item cannot be the explanation of a mistake concerning this item (199d2). I offer three arguments against its cogency, emphasizing that mistakes should be explained as a failure in knowing how to select an item, instead of not having the knowledge of it. In section 4, I respond to the objection that the model leads to a regress regarding truth-makers. I argue that Socrates’s midwifery turns the dialogue into a performative argument against the objection, for that cross-examination provided the truth-makers.