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[209b]

Theaetetus
You must have been.

Socrates
For heaven's sake! How in the world could I in that case have any opinion about you more than about anyone else? Suppose that I thought “That is Theaetetus which is a man and has nose and eyes and mouth” and so forth, mentioning all the parts. Can this thought make me think of Theaetetus any more than of Theodorus or of the meanest of the Mysians,1 as the saying is?

Theaetetus
Of course not.

Socrates
But if I think not only of a man with nose and eyes,


1 The Mysians were despised as especially effeminate and worthless

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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