Plato’s Socrates in the Theaetetus

Hugh H. Benson (University of Oklahoma)

Plato’s Theaetetus was apparently written late in Plato’s middle period and yet it depicts Socrates as engaging in the same practice Socrates is depicted as practicing in the earlier so-called Socratic dialogues. Various explanations have been offered for this return to Socratic practice compatible, but they all concede that Plato reverts to a depiction of Socratic practice in the Theaetetus. It is this concession that I want to challenge in this essay. I maintain that Socrates’ practice in the Theaetetus is subtly, but importantly, different from the practice Plato typically depicts in the earlier so-called Socratic dialogues.