BENJAMIN J. GRAZZINIthe divine and the political consequences of that relationship remain.
Even in the Apology, Socrates’ invocation of his daimon can only show
that he does believe in some gods—not that he also believes in the gods
of the city, or that he has not introduced new divinities.
More signifi cantly, what is perhaps the greatest diffi culty in un-
derstanding Socrates’ denial of having brought forth any wisdom of his
own still remains: insofar as he claims to be a psychic maieute, Socrates
must claim for himself a highly specialized knowledge.^26 Socrates deter-
mines who is pregnant. Socrates determines whether and how to make
a given patient’s labor more or less diffi cult. Socrates determines who
will most fruitfully associate with whom. Socrates determines whether
the offspring is viable or an empty wind-egg. It is not clear how Socrates
can maintain the implied claim that his knowledge of psychic maieutics
is an integral part of the process, and at the same time claim that he
does not make any contribution of his own.^27 Whether Socrates has no
wisdom, or only a little, or even that of a god, qua psychic maieute he as-
sumes the status of the measure of all things concerning the soul and its
offspring. At this point in the text, that assumption appears without jus-
tifi cation. What is more, the remainder of the Theaetetus seems to deny
the possibility of attaining measured knowledge of things at all.
***
I want to suggest that Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics allows for
an alternative approach to the issue of knowledge. For it is not simply the
case that Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics reassures and encour-
ages Theaetetus. Socrates establishes a complex series of relationships,
which I will articulate in terms of dialogical bondage, among himself,
Theaetetus, and the attempt to say what knowledge itself is. The lan-
guage of sunousia, “being together,” runs throughout Socrates’ account
of psychic maieutics.^28 Midwives are said to be the cleverest matchmak-
ers because they know what sort of woman must be with (sunousia;
149d7) what sort of man so as to produce the best children. Those of
Socrates’ associates to whom the god is gracious, as their association
(sunousia; 150d4) advances, make wonderful progress and bring forth
many beautiful things. And it is sunousia with Socrates that those who
come back after having left too soon beg for (151a2). Sunousia spans a
range of meanings including conversation, association, community, and
even sexual intercourse.^29 Socrates thus reassert s an erotic dimension of
dialogue that Theodorus had excluded at the outset.^30
Perhaps more signifi cantly, Socrates shifts the terms of the discus-
sion from what seems to be a statement of method to a description of the
relations binding those who seek knowledge together. Crucially, this is