Perception and Plato’s Theaetetus
Perception and Plato�s TheaetetusPlato discusses theories of knowledge throughout his famous dialogue, the Theaetetus.
He discusses many different ways of learning and attempts to define knowledge. Plato
does this through a conversation between a few characters: Socrates, the famous
philosopher; Theodorus, an aged friend and philosopher of Socrates; and Theaetetus, a
young man who is introduced to Socrates before a discussion. One aspect of knowledge
which they review is perception. It is defined and explained by Socrates, to the young and
innocent Theaetetus.
Perception is defined by Floyd H. Allport in his book, Theories of Perception and
the Concept of Structure, as �the way things look to us, or the way they sound, feel, taste,
or smell.� It is not the way things are exactly, but the way we see them; or because it
involves all of the five senses, the way we perceive them. Perception is not restricted to
sight only, the world has countless numbers of sounds, smells, and textures.
Perception is �the way things look to us� because even though something might
seem to be one way, it is another. For example, the Muller-Lyer illusion makes people see
two lines of different lengths, while the lines are the same size. This illustrates the fact
that just because you perceive something to be a certain way does not mean that it is true.
Truth and perception do not necessarily coincide. This...
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