Theaetetus

The dialogue stages a systematic inquiry into the nature of human knowledge, opening with debates over whether knowledge reduces to perceptual experience and testing the consequences of perceptual relativism. The discussants then consider knowledge as true belief and subsequently as true belief accompanied by an account, probing what additional element would secure epistemic status. Mathematical examples and skeptical puzzles are deployed to expose problems about false judgment, the objectivity of definitions, and the demands of explanation. The interrogation proceeds by careful questioning and refutation, and it concludes inconclusively, underscoring the persistent conceptual difficulties in formulating a satisfactory theory of knowledge.