BENJAMIN J. GRAZZINIfor himself (even if this does not mean pursuing philosophy) takes pre-
cedence. But this indication comes only after the conversation. When
Theaetetus fi rst hears about psychic maieutics, it is not clear where his
responsibilities lie.
The dialogical bond is articulated along three axes: Socrates, the
inquiry, and Theaetetus.^32 Socrates, too, is thus bound. As we have seen,
Socrates brings to bear on this conversation certain issues concerning
his indictment and trial, namely his ability to account for himself, and
his ability to account for the discrepancy between the various ways in
which he might appear to himself and others. When those issues were
fi rst brought to light, it was not clear how to understand the apparent
tension between the extent to which Socrates is bound to his personal
concerns, and the extent to which the terms of the conversation en-
tail that those concerns must be set aside for the sake of Theaetetus’
pregnancy.
Insofar as these two sets of concerns cannot be separated, how-
ever, it seems that they must in some way be commensurate with one
another. As indicated earlier, I take it that the signifi cance of emphasiz-
ing the physical resemblance between Socrates and Theaetetus is that
on this, of all days, Socrates needs to be concerned with how he appears
to others.^33 And the possibility of accounting for how there can be con-
fl icting appearances of what would seem to be one and the same is at the
heart of the problem of knowledge as it is addressed in the Theaetetus.
The destruction of the hypothesis that a human being is the measure
of all things shows how it cannot be the case that whatever someone
might say about Socrates is simply the truth of Socrates. It also shows
that whatever Socrates might say about himself cannot be the end of
the story either. Similarly, this issue can be seen to underlie Socrates’
worry about the possibility of accounting for false opinion. For, if he
cannot say how false opinion is possible, how could he say that Meletus,
or the jury, is wrong to think that he corrupts the young and is guilty of
impiety? Socrates’ concern for Theaetetus and Theaetetus’ offspring is
at the same time (though in a different respect) a concern for his own
situation. And insofar as Socrates’ primary concern seems to be with
how he appears to others, he cannot address that problem except by tak-
ing it up through an engagement with others. Socrates needs to look at
Theaetetus in order to see what he himself looks like. Socrates is bound
to himself through Theaetetus, and the conversation they share. This,
however, is only to say that the connection between Socrates’ desire for
self-knowledge and Theaetetus’ effort to say what knowledge itself is
cannot be ruled out in advance. If the two concerns are incommensu-
rable, this cannot be determined in advance, but only on the basis of