Plato's Theaetetus as an Indirect Dialogue: On the Difficulties in Writing Philosophy

Traditionally, Plato’s use of the form of dialogue is interpreted as an imitation of oral conversation. In order to display philosophy as directly as possible, the form of dialogue imitates a process of question and answer. The underlying thinking is thatthe direct philosophical activity is oral, and any written dialogue can at best represent philosophy indirectly. That is, the form of dialogue shows that Plato tries to avoid the “indirectness” which is inherent in writing. In this paper, I will revise the above viewand argue that, though Plato complains about writing in the Phaedrus and Letter VII, he does not avoid writing, nor does he exclude indirectness. His use of the form ofindirect dialogue highlights the indirectness of written words, and provides acounter-example to the traditional interpretation. By “indirect dialogue,” I mean the dialogue does not enter its main substantial discussion directly, but lets the substantialpart be read or retold by someone else indirectly. The Theaetetus is one example. HereI will analyze its opening plot to explore Plato’s transgression of the boundarybetween speaking and writing. The form of indirect dialogue works as an experiment which breaks a fixed prejudice against writing and indirectness, and helps us to reflecton Plato’s activity of writing philosophy and our own activity of reading philosophy