Plato's Theaetetus as a Second Apology

Zina Giannopoulou argues that Theaetetus–Plato's most systematic examination of knowledge–is a philosophically sophisticated elaboration of Apology that successfully differentiates Socrates from the sophists. In Apology Socrates defends his philosophical activity partly by distinguishing it from sophistic practices, and in Theaetetus he enacts this distinction: the self-proclaimed ignorant and pious Socrates of Apology poses as the barren practitioner of midwifery, an art that enjoys divine support, and helps his pregnant interlocutor to engender his ideas. Whereas sophistic expertise fills others' souls with items of dubious epistemic quality, Socratic midwifery removes, tests, and discards falsities. In

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