[165b]
for he will be less disgraced if he is discomfited.Socrates
Very well; now I am going to ask the most frightfully difficult question of all. It runs, I believe, something like this: Is it possible for a person, if he knows a thing, at the same time not to know that which he knows?Theodorus
Now, then, what shall we answer, Theaetetus?Theaetetus
It is impossible, I should think.Socrates
Not if you make seeing and knowing identical. For what will you do with a question from which there is no escape, by which you are, as the saying is, caught in a pit, when your adversary, unabashed, puts his hand over one of your eyes and asks
Very well; now I am going to ask the most frightfully difficult question of all. It runs, I believe, something like this: Is it possible for a person, if he knows a thing, at the same time not to know that which he knows?Theodorus
Now, then, what shall we answer, Theaetetus?Theaetetus
It is impossible, I should think.Socrates
Not if you make seeing and knowing identical. For what will you do with a question from which there is no escape, by which you are, as the saying is, caught in a pit, when your adversary, unabashed, puts his hand over one of your eyes and asks
