In the digression of Theaetetus which lies in the middle part of this dialogue, Plato compares the way of orator's life and the philosopher's life. He characterizes the latter as homoiôsis theôi kata to dunaton, 'becoming like god so far as is possible.' Although ancient Platonists have accepted this Platonic thought as the goal of life, 20th century scholars have cared little about it. The reason for this is that the digression seems to have nothing to do with the subject of this dialogue "what is Knowledge (epistêmê)?"
While some interpretations focus on the digression recently, most of these interpretations concentrate on finding Forms, which mostly appear in Plato's middle period dialogues, in the digression. The significance of the digression in view of the relation with arguments about knowledge in this dialogue has been hardly mentioned.
In this paper, I will first consider the argument in the digression, and then discuss the role of the digression in this dialogue. I will also argue that it is shown in the digression that philosophers' inquiry on the nature of being, especially of human-beings, and the understanding of the nature of human-beings (anthroupou physis) are needed to grasp true wisdom (sophia) and virtue (aretê) of human-beings, which is characterized as the recognition of human ignorance. Additionally, the digression indicates the project of the whole argument in this dialogue, which aims to get readers to pay attention to human-being as a knowing-subject through the question about knowledge.
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