Jason asked:

I am a grad student and am having trouble with these questions:

1. AtTheaetetus147b Socrates leads Theaetetus to agree to the following: "Then a man who is
ignorant of what knowledge is will not understand what cobbling is, or any other craft." At first blush
this seems outrageous. Surely a person could know how to make shoes without ever having thought
about the nature of knowledge. How can we interpret this passage so that it is plausible?

2. From Theaetetus149a to 151c Socrates develops an analogy between his own practice as a
teacher of philosophy and what midwives do. Explain the points of the analogy and how the analogy
enlightens us about the nature of philosophy and of education.

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Of course a person can make shoes without ever having thought about the nature of knowledge, but
shoe making is a skill. The cobbler might say that he "knows how to make shoes" but he is not taking
"knowledge" in the sense Socrates means, which is "knowing knowledge" and unless you know what
knowledge is you cannot claim to know. Socrates thinks knowledge cannot be defined in terms of
what it is "of". In the case of the cobbler all he has is the skill, or what knowledge is of, without any
knowledge of what knowledge is. So this cannot be knowledge.

Socrates cannot define knowledge, but can illustrate learning, which he does throughout his
dialogues, by getting people to think and helping them rid themselves of false beliefs, but the midwife
metaphor is particularly related to bringing out the truth: it must be successful, not a miscarriage. A
particular example of this is to be found in the Meno when Socrates draws geometrical knowledge
from a slave-boy.

The idea of drawing the truth out of by people getting them to think is, or at least should be, a part of
education. It cannot be all. In our education we need to acquire a lot of what Socrates would regard
as opinion.

Rachel Browne