The Philosophical Sense of Theaetetus' Mathematics

The Philosophical Sense of Theaetetus' Mathematics
Author(s): M. F. Burnyeat
Source: Isis, Vol. 69, No. 4, (Dec., 1978), pp. 489-513
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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The Philosophical Sense of Theaetetus'
Mathematics
By M. F. Burnyeat*
INTRODUCTION
T HERE IS A WELL-KNOWN PASSAGE in Plato's Theaetetus (147d-148b)

where the young Theaetetus recounts a story which has figured in histories of
mathematics ever since. The story concerns a geometry lesson in which Theodorus of
Cyrene gave separate case-by-case proofs that the side of a square with area 3 square
feet, 5 square feet, and so on up to 17 square feet, is incommensurable with the side of
a 1-foot (unit) square; whereupon Theodorus' pupils Theaetetus and a companion
of his called Socrates the Younger formulated a general definition of the important
mathematical notion of linear incommensurability. The question is, what kind of
evidence, if any, does the story provide for actual historical developments in Greek
mathematics?
It has been traditional among historians of mathematics to suppose that Plato's
scene celebrates Theaetetus' part in a historical reality, a decisive advance in the
theory of irrationals made, no doubt, in Theaetetus' adulthood but projected back
into his student days in order to fit the dramatic circumstances of the dialogue.
Dramatically, the dialogue is set in 399 B.C.: Socrates is in the last year of his life, with
the prospect of his trial and condemnation already looming (142c, 210d); Theaetetus
is depicted as a mere youth of sixteen or even less (142c, 143e, 168d, et al.), unbearded
(168e), and with some growing still to do (155b), while Theodorus is a distinguished
old man (143de, 146b) of around sixty or seventy years.' If, then, as historians
suppose, Theaetetus took the theory of irrationals forward from the stage to which
Theodorus had brought it, on grounds of their respective ages neither Theodorus'
contribution nor Theaetetus' is likely to have been made very near the time of the
lesson. The story is a fiction, devised by Plato for his own purposes in the dialogue.
Received September 1976; revised/accepted November 1976.

*Department of Philosophy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, England.
I was enabled to undertake the research for this paper by my tenure of a Radcliffe Fellowship. I am
grateful to the Radcliffe Trust for the gift of the fellowship and to University College London for allowing
me to take it up. I should like also to acknowledge the benefit of criticisms and suggestions from James
Dybikowski, Ian Mueller, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji.
For estimates of the life times of Theaetetus and Theodorus, based on the Theaetetus and such other
evidence as there is, see Eva Sachs, De Theaeteto Atheniensi mathematico (Dissertation, Berlin, 1914), Ch.
1; Kurt von Fritz in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. V.A.2.
(Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1934), s.v. "Theaitetos" (art. 2), pp. 1351-1352, s.v. "Theodoros" (art. 31), pp.
1811-1812.
ISIS, 1978, 69 (No. 249) 489

490 M. F. BURNYEAT
The question now becomes the following: is it reasonable to think that Plato's
purpose in composing the story includes the celebration of an important development
in the progress of mathematics? Historians have not hesitated to affirmthat it is. Two
kinds of considerations support their judgment. The first is evidence independent of
Plato that Theaetetus did contribute decisively to the theory of irrationals (see
below); the second is evidence that Plato did intend the Theaetetus to mark Theaete-
tus' mathematical achievements.
The main body of the dialogue is prefaced by a miniature conversation between
two Megarian philosophers, imagined as taking place just after a battle near Corinth
in 369 B.C.2 Theaetetus, who took part in the fighting, is now dying from wounds and
dysentery. His conduct on the battlefield is commended: it was quite as would be
expected from a man of his virtues. Then it is recalled that Socrates had been greatly
impressed when he met him in 399 (a reference to the discussion which constitutes the
dialogue proper) and predicted for him a distinguished career (142ad). It is natural to
understand Socrates' prediction as Plato's testimony to Theaetetus' actual intellectual
achievements. The prefatory encomium on the dying mathematician is Plato dedicat-
ing the dialogue to the memory of a friend and colleague in the Academy.
That being so, it seems equally natural to find something of Theaetetus' mathemat-
ical accomplishments prefigured in the dialogue itself, in the story we began with. The
geometry lesson is fictitious, but if we have read the signs of Plato's purpose correctly,
it may still encapsulate real contributions by master and pupil. In the words of van
der Waerden, "It can not have been Plato's intention to give credit to Theodorus for
what is due to Theaetetus, nor vice versa."3
So stands the traditional interpretation. To mention but a few of the distinguished
names who have adhered to its reading of Plato's purpose: Heinrich Vogt, Eva Sachs,
Sir Thomas Heath, Kurt von Fritz, B. L. van der Waerden, and Siegfried Heller,
although differing in important details of their reconstruction, all agree that we are
dealing with an o riginal contribution to science by Theaetetus, building on results
previously attained by Theodorus.4 Ancient scholarship took the same view, as we
shall see. Recently, however, a dissentient voice has been heard. In a series of writings
Arpad Szabo has maintained that in the scene before us Theaetetus accomplishes
nothing of worth or even interest. If, at first reading, the passage suggests otherwise,
that is because Theaetetus himself, who tells the story, naYvelythinks he has made a
discovery, when really he has been deliberately led by Theodorus to work out in the
2For the identification and dating of the battle, see Sachs, De Theaeteto, pp. 22-40; Auguste Dies in the
Bude edition of the Theaetetus, Platon, Oeuvres compltes, Vol. VIII.2 (Paris: Association Guillaume
Bude, 1924), pp. 120-123.
3B. L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening, trans. Arnold Dresden (Groningen: Noordhoff, 1954), p.
142; cf. the similar sentiment in Kurt von Fritz, "The Discovery of Incommensurability by Hippasus of
Metapontum," Annals of Mathematics, 1945, 46:242-264, here cited from David J. Furley and R. E.
Allen, eds., Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, Vol. I (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York:
Humanities Press, 1969), p. 384.
4Heinrich Vogt, "Die Entdeckungsgeschichte des Irrationalen nach Plato und anderen Quellen des 4.
Jahrhunderts," Bibliotheca Mathematica, 1909-1910, 3 F., 10:97-155; Sachs, De Theaeteto; Thomas L.
Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), Vol. I, pp. 202 ff.; von Fritz,
"Theaitetos" and "Theodoros"; B. L. van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik der Pythagoreer," Mathematische
Annalen, 1947-1949, 120:127-153, 676-700, here cited from Oskar Becker, ed., Zur Geschichte der
griechischen Mathematik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1965); van der Waerden,
Science Awakening; Siegfried Heller, "Ein Beitrag zur Deutung der Theodoros-Stelle in Platons Dialog
'Theaetet,"' Centaurus, 1956-1958, 5:1-58.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL SENSE OF THEAETETUS' MATHEMATICS 491
lesson a point or two long familiar to mathematicians and already implicit in his
teacher's instruction.5
Szabo's interpretation is elaborately argued, but in advance of any confrontation
with his arguments it can be seen to jar with Plato's presentation of Theaetetus'
definition of incommensurability. In no other dialogue does Socrates' interlocutor
come forward with a contribution of his own to compare with the one displayed here,
and it is greeted by Socrates with praise on two significant counts: as an exemplary
answer amply justifying the portrait Theodorus had given earlier of his pupil's
outstanding talent (148b, referring to 144ab),6 and as a model definition which
Theaetetus would do well to follow in pursuing the task Socrates has set him of
explaining what knowledge is (148d). Evidently, the definition is a notable achieve-
ment. But at what level? Is it a fundamental contribution to science or just a token of
student prowess or something in between? The traditional interpretation favors the
first, Szabo the second; but perhaps these are not the exhaustive alternatives they are
usually assumed to be. That is the possibility I propose to explore here.
I take as my starting assumption that, as already indicated, the geometry lesson is
not a detachable historical report but a fiction devised by Plato for his own purposes
in the dialogue. Hence the historical import of the lesson must be evaluated by a
reading which takes account of its context in the dialogue and asks what philosophi-
cal point Plato designed it to make. Szabo's dismissive estimate is not to be believed,
for the reason already given and others to be added, but his interpretation is a
challenge to go over the scene once more with a view to making better philosophical
sense of Theaetetus' mathematics. Placed as it is before the dialogue's inquiry into the
nature of knowledge and after the generous praise of Theaetetus' talent and promise
(in the preface at 142bd and in Theodorus' portrait of him at 143e-144b), the passage
needs to be read with a sense of what the historical Theaetetus and his mathematical
achievements might have meant to Plato and his contemporaries. That is how ancient
scholars tried to read it, and I shall have regard for what can be learned from their
discussions, which were more extensive than has usually been appreciated.
THE TEXT
As a basis for discussion I reproduce the text of 147c 7-148d 7 followed by the
admirable English of John McDowell.7 Refinements on points of translation can be
postponed until they are needed.
5ArpaidSzab6, "Der mathematische Begriff 6i5iayLu und das sog. 'geometrische Mittel,"' Maia, 1963,
15:219-256; "Theaitetos und das Problem der Irrationalitat in der griechischen Mathematikgeschichte,"
Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 1966,14:303-358; Anfange der griechischen Mathema-
tik (Munich/Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1969). Since there is much overlapping and repetition among these, I
shall cite Anfdnge except in cases of some positive difference. Szabo's interpretation is accepted as "on the
whole, sound" by Jaap Mansfeld, "Notes on Some Passages in Plato's Theaetetus and in the 'Anonymous
Commentary,"' in Zetesis: Festschrift E. de Strycker (Antwerp/Utrecht: De Nederlandsche Boekhandel,
1973), p. 112. For a less favorable scholarly judgment, see Walter Burkert's review of Szab6, Anfdnge, in
Erasmus, 1971, 23:102-105. But I have not found in the literature any large-scale critical examination of
Szabo's views.
60f the traits listed by Theodorus the relevant one here is no doubt Theaetetus' quickness of mind (144a
6-7: ot' rE 6otdE c6'a7rEp oVTroS Kaft 61Xt'votL). Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I 34, explains ayX?C)oa as
quickness at hitting upon the explanation of something. In Plato's Laws (747b) it is claimed that quickness
of mind, facility at learning, and good memory, which are the three intellectual qualities mentioned in the
portrait of Theaetetus, are especially promoted by a mathematical education.
7Platonis opera, ed. J. Burnet (2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), Vol. I. John McDowell, Plato
Theaetetus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).
492 M. F. BURNYEAT
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THE PHILOSOPHICALSENSE OF THEAETETUS'MATHEMATICS 493
THEAETETUS. It [sc. to say what knowledge is] looks easy now, Socrates, when you put
it like that. There's a point that came up in a discussion I was having recently with your
d namesake, Socrates here; it rather seems that what you're asking for is something of the
same sort.
SOCRATES. What sort of point was it, Theaetetus?
THEAETETUS. Theodorus here was drawing diagrams to show us something about
powers namely that a square of three square feet and one of five square feet aren't
5 commensurable, in respect of length of side, with a square of one square foot; and so on,
selecting each case individually, up to seventeen square feet. At that point he somehow got
tied up. Well, since the powers seemed to be unlimited in number, it occurred to us to do
e something on these lines: to try to collect the powers under one term by which we could
refer to them all.
SOCRATES. And did you find something like that?
THEAETETUS. I think so; but you must look into it too.
SOCRATES. Tell me about it.
5 THEAETETUS. We divided all the numbers into two sorts. If a number can be obtained
by multiplying some number by itself, we compared it to what's square in shape, and
called it square and equal-sided.
SOCRATES. Good.
THEAETETUS. But if a number comes in between these include three and five, and in
148 fact any number which can't be obtained by multiplying a number by itself, but is obtained
by multiplying a larger number by a smaller or a smaller by a larger, so that the sides
containing it are always longer and shorter we compared it to an oblong shape, and
called it an oblong number.
5 SOCRATES. Splendid. But what next?
THEAETETUS. We defined all the lines that square off equal-sided numbers on plane
surfaces as lengths, and all the lines that square off oblong numbers as powers, since they
b aren't commensurable with the first sort in length, but only in respect of the plane figures
which they have the power to form. And there's another point like this one in the case of
solids.
SOCRATES. That's absolutely excellent, boys. I don't think Theodorus is going to be up
on a charge of perjury.
5 THEAETETUS. Still, Socrates, I wouldn't be able to answer your question about

knowledge in the way we managed with lengths and powers. But it seems to me to be
something of that sort that you're looking for. So Theodorus does, after all, turn out to
have said something false.
c SOCRATES. But look here, suppose he'd praised you for running, and said he'd never
come across a young man who was so good at it; and then you'd run a race and been
beaten by the fastest starter, a man in his prime. Do you think his praise would have been
any less true?
5 THEAETETUS. No.
SOCRATES. And what about knowledge? Do you think it's a small matter to seek it out,
as I was saying just now not one of those tasks which are arduous in every way?
THEAETETUS. Good heavens, no: I think it's really one of the most arduous of tasks.
SOCRATES. Well then, don't lose heart about yourself, and accept that there was
d something in what Theodorus said. Always do your best in every way; and as for
knowledge, do your best to get hold of an account of what, exactly, it really is.
THEAETETUS. If doing my best can make it happen, Socrates, it will come clear.
SOCRATES. Come on, then-because you've just sketched out the way beautifully-try
5 to imitate your answer about the powers. Just as you collected them, many as they are, in
one class, try, in the same way, to find one account by which to speak of the many kinds of
knowledge.
494 M. F. BURNYEAT
INTERPRETATIVE PARAPHRASE
The bare facts of the case, as Theaetetus tells them, are as follows. He and a
companion, the younger Socrates,8 were sparked off by a series of incommensurabil-
ity proofs undertaken by Theodorus. Theodorus showed them that, given squares of
area 1 square foot and 3 square feet respectively, the side of the latter is incommensu-
rable (has no common measure) with the side of the. former, that is, with the 1-foot
(unit) length. We are not told how he proved this result, only that he did the same for
a square 5 feet in area and proceeded case by case as far as the square of 17 feet. In
effect, since the sides of these squares are \F3 feet, \15 feet, . . . 17 feet, he proved
the irrationality of the square roots of each of the integers between 3 and 17 (with the
exception, naturally, of 4, 9, and 16, which have integral square roots), but that is not
how he expressed it. Greek mathematics recognized no numbers but the natural
numbers (positive integers) from 1, or often only 2, onward and treated of irrational
quantities as geometrical entities, in this instance, lines identified by the areas of the
squares that can be constructed on them. Hence the exclusively geometrical form
taken by Theodorus' lesson.
Now Theaetetus and the younger Socrates had the idea to attempt a general
characterization of these magnitudes. They did it with the help of a division of
numbers (meaning, as explained, the positive integers) into two classes: square
numbers are those numbers which can be resolved into equal factors (as, e.g., 4 is 2 X
2), being so called by way of comparison with equal-sided figures of that shape;
oblong numbers are all the rest, so called because they can only be resolved into
unequal factors. The boys could then define length (the word is used here as a label
for commensurable lengths) = side of (a square with area given by) a square number;
and power (the term used for incommensurable lengths) = side of (a square with area
given by) an oblong or nonsquare number. This last, the object of the exercise,
amounts to saying that for any positive integer n, In is irrational if and only if there
is no positive integer m such that n = m X m; although, once again, that is not how a
Greek thought of it. Finally, Theaetetus explains that they called the incommensu-
rable lines "powers"-in effect, "square lines" as opposed to "length lines" (see
below)-because they are incommensurable with tte "lengths" in length but com-
mensurable with them in respect of the squares they have the power to form; and he
indicates that analogous distinctions can be defined for solids, to deal with (what we
call) rational and irrational cube roots.
The remainder of the passage quoted (148bd) is a tailpiece needing no special
elucidation but containing several important clues for evaluating Theaetetus' story.
With that in mind and the full text before us, we can make a start on problems of
interpretation.
FIRST PROBLEM: THE EXTENT OF THEAETETUS' ORIGINALITY
It is an obvious point that 2 should be the first oblong number. If Theaetetus

mentions 3 as his first example (147e 9), that is presumably because it was with the 3-
8This Socrates, since he is referredto as present (147d 1), must be one of the group of friends with whom
Theaetetus entered at the very beginning of the dialogue (144c; cf. 168d). In the Sophist (216a, 218b) he
returns with Theodorus and Theaetetus for the sequel conversation which continues into the Politicus,
where he takes over from Theaetetus as respondent (Politicus 257c-258a). Little is known about him. A
reference in Aristotle, Metaphysics Z 11, on which cf. E. Kapp, "Sokrates der Jtirngere,"Philologus, 1924,
79:228-233, implies mathematico-philosophical interests typical of the Academy; that he was in the
Academy, and had political interests as well, is confirmed by the way he is spoken of by the author of the
eleventh of the Platonic Epistles (358d).
foot square that Theodorus began his demonstrations (147d 4). (Why Theodorus
should have done so is a question we will come to in due course.) But what of the
square-oblong division itself? Szabo alleges-and the accusation is designed to shake
our confidence in the whole story of the boys' discovery--that Theaetetus claims the
division of numbers as his own and his friend's when it is nothing of the sort, but
common property of Pythagorean origin? Now what is and what is not to be credited
to Pythagorean efforts in the field of mathematics is a difficult and highly disputed
matter,10but there is no need to press the point. The fact is, it is by no means clear
that under Greek conventions in these matters, which were less punctilious than ours,
Theaetetus would be understood to claim ownership of the division or even of the
terminology applied with it. No one familiar with the character of the Platonic
Socrates supposes he is setting himself up as an original mathematician when he says
at Euthyphro 12d that he would distinguish even numbers as those which are not
scalene but isosceles. This must be an allusion to some method-obscure to us,
though not, apparently, to Euthyphro-of representing numbers by triangles, but
Socrates makes no reference to the mathematicians who devised it; he simply states
that that is how, if he were asked to distinguish even numbers from odd, he would do
it.
So too with the boys' division of numbers into square and oblong. Theaetetus'
report (147e 5), "We divided all the numbers into two sorts," is plain narrative,
staking no claim for originality. Socrates commends the procedure (147e 8, 148a 5),
but his "What next?" at 148a 5 shows he sees it as subsidiary to the definition of
commensurable and incommensurable still to come. The case of that definition is
presented in a markedly different light: here is something the boys themselves
thought of seeking, and found (147d 7, e 2-3), and it is this alone that is subsequently
held up as their model answer (148b,d). Further, it is specifically this finding that
confirms to Socrates the truth of Theodorus' testimony about Theaetetus (148b).11
It may seem that at 148c Socrates tempers his high praise of the definition by
conceding that Theaetetus might not lead the field against the very toughest adult
competition, insisting that he has, nevertheless, done brilliantly for a youngster. This
indication of some junior status for the definition is certainly to be reckoned with (see
below), but it does not swing the balance all the way to the mere schoolboy exercise
of Szabo's interpretation. In context, the remark is Socrates' reassuring response to a
doubt Theaetetus has expressed (148b) that he could deal as competently with the
question "What is knowledge?" The intention is to encourage him to tackle this
problem--a supremely difficult task (148c 7)-not to diminish in any way his earlier
accomplishment with the mathematical one. That remains, if the story is read
carefully, a finding, a discovery, meriting Socrates' unequivocal commendation.
SECOND PROBLEM: THEAETETUS' TERMINOLOGY
I turn now to a vexed issue of terminology. The word HVatls ("power") occurs in
what appears to be two distinct uses in Theaetetus' story. At the beginning of the
passage (147de) it specifies what Theodorus' demonstrations were about; at the end
9Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 87-88, 106, following A. Frajese, "Perche Teodoro di Cirene tralascio la radice di
due?," Peridico di Mathematiche, 1966, S.4, 44:422.
'0For a cautionary assessment, see Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans.
Edwin L. Minar, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), Ch. 6.
"This last point is well noted by Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," p. 113, contrasting it with the division
of numbers, which he ascribes to the Pythagoreans. Szabo, Anfdnge, p. 88, quotes Vogt on the latter, not
the former.
496 M. F. BURNYEAT
(148b) it is defined to denominate incommensurable lines in opposition to the term

/llKOS ("length"), which is restricted to commensurable lines. The defined use of
6vaytoS is a special one, for with a single possible exception (see below) there is no
trace elsewhere of HvaytlS~ or Y"KOS, being used in accordancewith the boys'
definition. By contrast, the initial occurrences of 6VaytoS must be supposed to carry
a standard meaning which a reader could pick up without special guidance, since
none is given. There are thus two problems: what does Hva,yuS signify at the start of
the story, and how does this presumably standard use of the term relate to the defined
use at the end? On his answer to these questions Szabo rests the main weight of his
case. I shall argue that even if he is largely right about HvaytlS, that is not good
reason to accept his dismissive estimate of the episode before us.
I said that with one possible exception there is no trace elsewhere of the terms
6VVa/NS or /7KOS, beingusedin accordancewiththe boys'definition.Euclidemploys
only the complex descriptions "commensurable in length" (V KL uv54L,TpoS--as
here 147d4-5, 148b 1) and "commensurable in square/power" (6vaiyt uvpyeTpoS.; see
e.g. Elements X defs. 2 and 3). In particular, we shall see that v aptlS in mathemati-
cal contexts is standardly used of squares, not of their sides. The single exception-
and if that is what it is, it is again associated with Theaetetus and the younger
Socrates--is Plato's Politicus 266ab, where the pair are the beneficiaries of a ponder-
ous mathematical joke having to do with the specific difference between men and
pigs, as follows. It is man's nature to walk by the power of two feet, and this is
punningly represented as the diagonal of a unit square, that is, a line 2 feet in
square/power (6vv6pet &'3(ovS, Nf2 feet); a pig, by contrast, walks by the power of
four feet, and a line 4 feet in square/ power (sf4 feet) is the diagonal of (the square on)
the first diagonal or, as it is also described (266b 5-6), the diagonal of our 66vayus.
If this last phrase is taken, as with some translators,13 as equivalent to "the diagonal
of the diagonal" at 266a 9-10, then HvaytlS refers again to the incommensurable
diagonal \72, not to the 2-foot square upon it; but a reference to the square itself14
would serve as well, or better, for the joke to work. Either way, it is natural to
suppose that the Theaetetus terminology may be an idiosyncrasy of the young
mathematicians' own work from the early days of the theory of irrationals, before
vocabulary had crystallized. If so, its inclusion would be part of Plato's tribute to
their contribution.
That said, it is to be remarked that when earlier I paraphrased HvaytS~ as "square
line" (in contrast to "length line"), this was calculated to bring out the point that the
new application which the term receives in the boys' definition does not cancel, but
depends upon, its standard meaning--"square." Immense heat has been generated
over the terminology of the passage through failure to make any distinction between
meaning and application. The cause of the trouble is that while HvaytS~ is applied to
incommensurable lines in the definition at 148b 1, it is also, as already noted, used
earlier to specify what Theodorus' demonstrations were about, so it has been a matter
of controversy whether at that earlier stage the term stands for the sides of a series of
squares or for the squares themselves, both of which were involved in the exercise.
12Diagram and elucidation in J. B. Skemp, Plato's Statesman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952),
p. 139, n. 1; Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 90-93.
13E.g., Skemp, Plato's Statesman, p. 139; A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Sophist and The Statesman (London:
Nelson, 1961), p. 269.
14As in the translation of Otto Apelt, Platons Dialog Politikos (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1914), p. 35; also
Szabo, loc. cit.
The latter view was taken by Sachs, following Vogt, and is defended at length by
Szabo,'5 but the former has found wider support, being favored by Heath, von Fritz,
van der Waerden,16 and by the greater number of editors and translators since
Heindorf.17 (McDowell's translation is nicely, and perhaps deliberately, ambiguous
between the two.) This majority opinion aims to avoid what would, it is felt, be an
intolerable shift of meaning (from "square"to "incommensurable side"), but has to
concede a narrowing of meaning (from "side" to "incommensurable side") and
adduces no parallel for 6Uvavt' in the sense of "side, whether commensurable or
incommensurable." It incurs, in addition, a grammatical objection. If 6UvatlS meant
"side," the phrase 7wep' 6vva'pav . . . Tn7S TE Tp(wo6oS wept Kac 7erTEW7O6OS~ at 147d
3-4 ought to mean "concerning sides 3 foot and 5 foot in length," whereas the sense
requires "3 foot and 5 foot in square," for which construction with Uvaytsl no one
has been able to supply a satisfactory parallel or explanation."8 In any case, the
difficulty these scholars aim to avoid is illusory: Uvaytsl is applied to incommensu-
rable lines without meaning "line" or "incommensurable line." Given what we have
yet to confirm, that the word means "square,"it is precisely in virtue of this meaning
that it can be adapted to serve as a name for incommensurable lines: in its naming
function it alludes to the fact that the lines in question are commensurable in square
but not in length, just as the lines which are commensurable in length as well as in
square are termed "lengths" or "length lines."
Ancient scholars made the reverse mistake. Evidently they could not conceive how a
word meaning "square"might be applied to something that was not actually a square.
An anonymous commentary on Plato's Theaetetus, which has survived on papyrus
from the second century A.D.,19 observes that "the ancients called squares 6vvyelts"
(27, 31-3) and goes on to construe ylqKOS~ and v'vatpcs in the boys' definition as
themselves denominating two species of square (26, 26-48; 33, 8-16; 40, 39-41; 45,
10-14), in plain defiance of the Platonic text (as threatens to show at 41, 8-16).20 And
"5Sachs, De Theaeteto, pp. 45-46; Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," pp. 99, 113-114; Szab6, "Der
mathematische Begriff,"passim, and Anfdnge, pp. 15 ff., 43 ff.; also Heller, "Ein Beitrag,"pp. 13, 52; and,
in the last century, George Johnston Allman, Greek Geometryfrom Thales to Euclid (Dublin: Hodges,
Fiqis; London: Longmans, Green, 1889), p. 208 with n. 5.
Heath, Greek Mathematics, Vol. I, pp. 203-204, 209, n. 2; von Fritz, "Theaitetos," p. 1354, and
"Theodoros," p. 1815; van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," p. 249, and Science Awakening, p. 166,
although in "Nachtrag 1963" to his "Die Arithmetik" (Becker, Zur Geschichte der griechischen Mathema-
tik, p. 254) he switches allegiance to the other view in response to the arguments of Szab6, "Der
mathematische Begriff'; see also James Gow, A Short History of Greek Mathematics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1884), p. 78, n. 1.
7L. F. Heindorf, Platonis dialogi selecti, Vol. II (Berlin: Nauck, 1805), p. 300. Szab6, "Der mathema-
tische Begriff," p. 225, incorrectly assigns the origin of this view to Paul Tannery, "Le nombre nuptial dans
Platon," Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger, 1876, 1:185, n. 1. In a later paper, "Sur la
langue mathe'matique de Platon," Annales de la Faculte' des Lettres de Bordeaux, 1884, N.S. I (No.
3):95-100, and even more emphatically in "L'hypothese geometrique du Menon de Platon," Archivfiir
Geschichte der Philosophie, 1889, 2:511, Tannery proposed that throughout our passage 6vvza1p,urv should
be read for 66vzav,uts to secure an unproblematic reference to lines rather than squares. (These references
can also be found in Vols. I and II of Paul Tannery, Me'moiresscientifiques, ed. J. L. Heiberg and H. G.
Zeuthen (Toulouse: Edouard Privat; Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1912), Vol. I, p. 11, n. 2; Vol. II, pp. 91-98,
402, respectively.) Not surprisingly, such drastic surgery was universally rejected.
'8The objection is rightly urged by Szab6, "Der mathematische Begriff," pp. 226-227. The attempted
solutions of older editors are examined and rebutted by Thomson in William Thomson and Gustav Junge,
The Commentary of Pappus on Book X of Euclid's Elements (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1930), App. A, pp. 180-181.
'9H. Diels and W. Schubart, eds., Anonymer Kommentar zu Platons Theaetet, Berliner Klassikertexte
(Berlin: Weidmann, 1905).
20The commentator's construal is perfectly clear, contrary to the attempt of Mansfeld, "Notes," pp.
112-113, to read him as reporting correctly Plato's double use of 6Uvacvts~.
498 M. F. BURNYEAT
the same (impossible) reading of the definition was reproduced by Pappus circa 300
A.D. when he discussed the Theaetetus passage in the course of his commentary on
Book X of Euclid's Elements. This commentary survives only in an Arabic transla-
tion, and the English version of the relevant portion21renders the boys' definition as a
classification of sides rather than squares; but a note by the translator22tells us that at
this point he has assumed that Pappus' original would have contained an accurate
report of Plato's text--the Arabic rather suggests a classification of squares--and a
summary of Theaetetus' result a little earlier in the commentary is clear evidence that
Pappus did indeed understand it as a classification of squares.23
This ancient testimony, mistaken as it is about the defined use of 6vatlS~ at the end
of the passage, is for that very reason strong grounds for accepting that &6v'RaySat
147d means "square." We can add direct statements identifying vsroe,ayin mathe-
matical usage as "square" by Diophantus, Arithmetica 4, 14-15 Tannery, and
lamblichus, In Nicomachi arithmeticam introductionem 82, 6-7 Pistelli. Later Greek
scholars plainly had no inkling that at an earlier period the word might have meant
something different, and in paraphrasing 147d they automatically take vvaMpS~ as
"square":see the anonymous commentator 25, 40 ff., Pappus 73-74, also lamblichus,
Theologoumena arithmeticae 11, 11-16 de Falco. The correctness of their assumption
can be confirmed from Greek mathematical usage itself. It is true that in mathemati-
cal contexts &6vatlS is most frequently (in Euclid, exclusively) found in complex
phrases such as (to repeat those already cited) 5VVL4El uV/ILeTpOS ("commensurablein
square/ power"), 6Vvapeot 6wov0S ("2 feet in square/power"), where 6Vv6e/IeL could in
theory be construed in the Aristotelian sense "potentially," as indicating that the line
in question is able (has the power) to form a certain square.24But these phrases are no
less easily construed with 6Vvdyel = "in square," and the matter is clinched, so far as
the earlier period is concerned, by Plato, Timaeus 31c, where HvaynS signifies a
"squ-are"number in contrast to 0'5KOS, a "cube" number.25
We must settle, then, for UvaytlS at 147d meaning "square."That answers the first
of the questions with which this section began; an answer to the second, concerning
the specially defined use of 63vayt Sc at the end of Theaetetus' story, has already been
proposed. As it happens, the conclusions at which we have arrived are identical with
the answers given to the same questions by Szabo, who is the one commentator to
have grasped the essential point that HvayolS is applied to incommensurable lines in
virtue of its meaning "square." But his route to these conclusions differs importantly
from ours. To fix the meaning of SiSvagotShe relies less on parallels of usage, and not
at all on the testimony of ancient scholarship, but mainly on an elaborate and
speculative reconstruction of how the word could have come to mean "square."
21Thomson and Junge, Commentary of Pappus, p. 74.
22Ibid., p. 103, n. 80.
23Ibid., p. 73; see also Thomson's App. A, pp. 180 ff., on the term "power." Further confirmation is
available in a medieval Latin translation of the commentary, made from a version of the Arabic which was
not in all respects identical to the one that survived: Gustav Junge, "Das Fragment der lateinischen
Ubersetzung des Pappus-Kommentars zum 10. Buche Euklids," Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der
Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik, 1936, 3:17, lines 13-15, where illa in the rendering of the classifica-
tion at the place which Thomson amended can only stand for virtus = Hiva/.tsw,i.e., square.
24Cf.Karl Barthlein, "Uber das Verhaltnis der Aristoteles zur Dynamislehre der griechischen Mathemat-
iker," Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie, 1965, 108:35-61; contra, Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 19-22, 44, n. 14.
25Citedlong ago by Sachs, De Theaeteto, p. 45, n. 2, together with Politicus 266b, which we discussed
above, and Timaeus 54b, which is, however, another complex phrase Ka-Tar vvatuv. Republic 587d, cited
by Szab6, "Der mathematische Begriff," pp. 221-223, is more help, for there KaTa vvaattzVcontrasts with
Kama rptr-qPV atrv as "in square" with "in cube." For later mathematical usage it is sufficient to take a
glance at the Index verborum in standard editions of Archimedes, Pappus, or Diophantus.
By his account, this application of the term is a metaphor from its financial sense of
"worth, value," developed in connection with the operation of "squaring"26a given
rectangle by finding the mean proportional between its sides. The square on this
proportional is equal in area to the rectangle (see Euclid, Elements 11 14, VI 13 and
17), and can be called UVagts because it represents the "square-value" (Quadrat-
wert) of the latter, what it is "worth" (O'Uov lvaTatl) in square. So UvvagtS means
"square-value of a rectangle," hence "square."27
That is step 1 in Szabo's.account. Step 2 is a chronological hypothesis. There is
reason to believe that the geometrical construction of the mean proportional was
already known to Hippocrates of Chios in the second half of the fifth century, for it is
presupposed by his famous quadrature of lunes.28 What is more, Szabo thinks that
use of the construction would inevitably lead to reflection on cases where the mean
proportional has no whole number expression, thereby to the concept of linear
incommensurability; and it is precisely in these cases, for the squares with sides not
expressible as whole numbers, that the special term Uva,pts would be needed.29
Hence a knowledge of incommensurability is bound up with the Uvaplt S-
terminology and both must predate Hippocrates; in the well-known Eudemus-
Simplicius report of Hippocrates' quadrature of lunes, a statement that similar
segments of circles have the same ratio to one another as their bases have vVVaput,in
square (Simplicius, In Aristotelis Physica 61, 6-7 Diels; cf. 61, 9; 62, 18 et al.), could
well represent the fifth-century mathematician's own use of the terminology.30Thus
the material Theodorus taught in 399 had long been familiar to mathematicians and
is not to be acclaimed as his own achievement.3'
So much for Theodorus. Step 3, the debunking of Theaetetus, follows swiftly after.
But before following further ourselves we should pause to reflect on some of the
inferences we have been invited to draw. Suppose, first, we accept step 1. It is not at
all clear how rapidly reflection on the cases Szabo mentions would reach anything
like proofs of incommensurability,32but in any event the most the argument estab-
lishes is that these developments were known to Hippocrates by the time he did his
quadrature of lunes. Hippocrates and Theodorus are coupled as contemporaries in
the only comparative chronological record extant,33so for all that has been shown to
26TETpaywvElv, used here at 148a7.

27Szabo, Anfdnge, pp. 43-60.
28HereSzabo, Anfdnge, pp. 62, 66, n. 37, can cite the agreement of van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik,"
p. 225, n. 28, Science Awakening, p. 134.
29Szab6's further projected specification of these cases is in terms borrowed from Bk. VIII of Euclid's
Elements, where propositions 18 and 20 state, in effect, that the mean proportional is a (whole) number if,
and only if, the sides are similar plane numbers, i.e., numbers whose factors are proportional (Elements
VII def. 21). This involves him in a controversial early dating of Bk. VIII. Compare van der Waerden, "Die
Arithmetik," pp. 222-226, Science Awakening, p. 153, who attributes the work to Archytas on considera-
tions most of which (unlike the counter-considerations of Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 98-100, 229 ff.) presuppose
no view as to when and how the theory of irrationals first developed; van der Waerden's attribution is
approved by Kurt von Fritz, "Archytas of Tarentum" in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. I (New
York: Scribner's, 1970), pp. 231-232.
30Ihat the terminology reflects Hippocrates' own language is also suggested by Thomas L. Heath,
Mathematics in Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), pp. 207-208. If so, this would be the earliest
attestedmathematicaloccurrenceof 6v'vaA,cl.
31Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 55-80.
32Ina later section of the book, Szab6 (ibid., pp. 238-239; cf. 264) concedes as much himself when he
notes that to have reached Elements VIII 18 and 20 is not yet to have demonstrated that there do exist
incommensurable lines; cf. Szabo, "Theaitetos," pp. 345 ff.; Anfdnge, pp. 263-287.
33Eudemusapud Proclus, In Euclidis Elementa I 66, 4-7 Friedlein; lamblichus, De communi mathema-
tica scientia 77, 25-78, 1 Festa.
500 M. F. BURNYEAT
the contrary, what Hippocrates knew could have been the work of Theodorus. (That
the relevant concepts and operations were not new in a fictitious lesson set in 399 and
written around 369 is, of course, not to the point, although Szabo sometimes speaks
as if it were.) Indeed, Szabo's hypothetical reconstruction of the history of the
ofvapu,s -terminology could perfectly well lead us to ascribe a major role in the events
to Theodorus, precisely on the strength of the Platonic passage under dispute.
Everything Szabo gets out of the early part of Theaetetus' story Plato could have put
in, just as historians of mathematics have traditionally supposed, in order to honor
the elder man's achievement.
But, of course, the reconstruction at step 1, ingenious though it is, remains a
hypothetical speculation. There is more than one way in which UvaapuS could have
come to be applied to squares. For example, when Aristotle in the Metaphysics
(1019b 33-4, 1046a 6-8) remarks that 6vvaitcvSg in geometry are a different sort of
thing from other 6vvaitcvS (potentialities, powers), being homonymously or meta-
phorically so called on account of a resemblance to these, the commentator Alexan-
der of Aphrodisias (In Aristotelis Metaphysica 394, 34-6 Hayduck) explains that a
square is called UvaptuS because it is o i' 7X -vpa', what the side is able (to
produce).34We are really in no position to improve upon this simple and straightfor-
ward derivation. That is why it was important to establish that Theodorus' &VViptcuS
are squares on grounds having nothing to do with the genesis of the concept. That
they .are squares is both more secure than any genetic hypothesis can claim to be and
sufficient to allow exegesis to proceed.
To pass, then, to Theaetetus' own part in the story and to step 3 in Szabo's
account.35 Szab6 contends that P/KOg and Uva,puS ("length" and "power") in the,
boys' definition at 148ab are nothing but abbreviations of the technical phrases
(familiarin Euclid)p/lKElt UV//Jt18CpOg and 5vvauit aV/ q gpOS("commensurable in
length," "commensurable in square"); this allows him to insist that the concepts
36
cannot have been Theaetetus' creation. I was not so specific as to how 6V'vapus
would be applied to incommensurable lines in virtue of its meaning "square,"but the
route through abbreviation is likely enough.37 Less plausibly, however, Szabo finds
that by comparison with the fuller technical descriptions, which are precise and clear,
the abbreviations are imprecise and misleading, a sign of student immaturity.38He is
entitled to his opinion, but what has to be shown is that this was Plato's opinion. It is
34Similarlythe anonymous commentator, 27, 31 ff. This mathematical use of the verb UvaaOat is to be
noted in our passage of the Theaetetus at 148b 2: tvauOat w(wr(r6ov. See also Plato, Republic 546b;
Aristotle, De incessu animalium 709a 1 and 19; Euclid, Elements X def. 4, X 21, et at]; the Hippocrates
report of Eudemus apud Simplicius, In Aristotelis Physica 63, 10-13 et al.; Proclus, In Euclidis Elementa I
8, 12-14 Friedlein, In Platonis Republicam II 36, 9-12 Kroll (these two in close connection with UVatt;S);
Archimedes, passim (J. L. Heiberg, Archimedis opera omnia, Leipzig: Teubner, 1915, Index I s.v.).
Neither Alexander nor the other writers show any trace or awareness of the financial metaphor by which
Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 45-47, would explain the construction. Szab6, "Der mathematische Begriff," pp.
244-247 (cf. Anfdnge, pp. 45-46), concedes that the examples are not exclusively, or even mainly, from
contexts dealing with the squaring of a rectangle, but he argues that the mathematical use of the verb
would have originated from such contexts because the "square-value"of other rectilinear plane figures was
determined by first constructing an equivalent rectangle and then squaring it (Euclid, Elements II, 14).
What he does not seem to appreciate (Anfdnge, p. 52, n. 28) is that while his financial metaphor supplies an
explanation of UvaaOat followed by a quantitativeor measuringexpression( tvautd t6aoV,65twk6atov,
etc.), it is less easy to derive from this the construction 6Yvau0atl w(wF6oV, TETpa ycoo, which Alexander
takes as primary, than it is to proceed the other way round.
36Contra e.g. van der Waerden, Science Awakening, p. 168.
3'The suggestion in fact goes back at least to Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," p. 114.
38Cf. also ibid., pp. 114, 127.
Plato's intentions we have to read, but there is no hint in the text of any such adverse
judgment on his part.39
Nevertheless, Szabo proceeds to argue that all the two boys have done is hand back
to Theodorus what he doubtless hoped to elicit, a classification of squares (sic), which
was presupposed already by the concepts used in the lesson: Theodorus after all was
sorting squares according as they have commensurable or incommensurable sides,
and it would be obvious all along that whole number squares with incommensurable
sides still have commensurable areas. No doubt it would be, but, once again, what
has to be shown is that this was Plato's verdict. In Plato's text what is depicted as the
boys' central achievement is not the recognition that the squares with incommensu-
rable sides have commensurable areas--for all that is said to the contrary this could
have been part of Theodorus' instruction, as indeed the anonymous commentator
(28, 18-34) imagines it was-but their finding a general answer to the question which
lines have the property of being commensurable in square only.40 On this crucial
point Szabo thinks it sufficient to allege that the answer has to be "reconstructed"
from the boys' classification, which is not given in the form of a mathematical
proposition but as a definition or designation of two classes of line.4' At best this is a
quibble over the wording of what, it should be remembered, is informal narrative, not
a mathematical treatise. Certainly Theodorus in his lesson had shown that some
squares are such as to be commensurable in square only, but he gave no general
condition for the property. His pupils did. A slight infelicity (if such it be) in
Theaetetus' terminology (however this was arrived at) is quite inadequate justifica-
tion for Szabo's dismissive estimate of their accomplishment.
What is true-and this helps to explain both why ancient scholars found it so
difficult to read what Plato actually wrote at 148ab and why modern scholars have
been tempted to the idea that 6PvaAugs initially means "side"-is that if 6VVaAtgs
means "square"at 147d 3, it means the same at 147d 8-e 1, where Theaetetus speaks
of deciding to look for a general characterization of the 6vva4Evs which formed the
subject of Theodorus' incommensurability proofs. We seem, then, to be promised a
definition pertaining to squares, whereas the outcome is a classification of lines. How
serious is this discrepancy?
The key sentence is 147d 7-e 1, which I render as follows:
Since the 6viwats'E were turningout42to be unlimitedin number,it occurredto us to

attemptto collectthemup into a singleway of speaking[i.e., a formulaor definition]of all
these 6vvau5Evts
together.
Theaetetus is recounting the thoughts suggested to himself and his companion by and
during Theodorus' lesson, and the idea that there is an endless series of whole number
squares (or sides of such squares) would hardly need to be prompted by a process as
protracted as Theodorus' lesson.43 That there are an indefinite, perhaps infinite,
number of squares with incommensurable sides, on the other hand, is precisely the
hypothesis that would suggest itself as Theodorus proceeded from case to case
proving more and yet more examples of incommensurability, perhaps by a method
39Norwith respect to a couple of lesser terminological inexactitudes detected by Szabo, Anfitnge, p. 83

(cf. also pp. 108-109).
40See van der Waerden, Science Awakening, p. 168.
41Szabo, Anfdnge, pp. 97-98.
42Note the imperfect Ota(vovYTo.
43Pace Szabo, "Der mathematische Begriff," pp. 232-233.
502 M. F. BURNYEAT
which could be endlessly reapplied.44Therefore, it is likely that, in context, "all these

&vvA6eu" refers to squares with incommensurable sides rather than to squares
generally.45But even if this point of detail is not accepted, no change of mathematical
substance is involved when the definition is eventually given in terms of lines.
Whether incommensurability is taken as a property that certain squares have in
respect of their sides or as a property of the sides themselves is just a matter of which
way one chooses to express the same facts. (That is why a competent mathematician
like Pappus could recast the definition as a classification of squares.) Such linguistic
variation is of little account when it is perfectly plain that the interest and importance
of the boys' endeavor lies in their formulation of a general condition for (linear)
incommensurability. It is this, and this alone, that Socrates subsequently holds up as
a model for Theaetetus to follow in answering the question "What is knowledge?"
(148d).
THIRD PROBLEM: THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THEODORUS' LESSON
Theodorus, it will be recalled, began his demonstrations on a 3-foot square and ended
on one of 17 square feet. Already in ancient times there was extensive debate about
the reasons for these termini.
To take first the question why the side of a 2-foot square is not listed among those
proved incommensurable by Theodorus. The anonymous commentary (28, 37-29,
40) recounts three rival explanations: (1) that Plato (!) had already dealt with it in the
Meno (84d-85b), (2) that the 2-foot square is in fact implicitly included since it can be
divided into equals (sc. equal areas, which, as the commentator objects, is entirely
beside the point), (3) that to construct a square on the diagonal for the case of 12 is
no trouble, whereas to prove subsequent incommensurabilities a con4truction of
some complexity is required. The commentator backs (3), which may be his own
contribution, and he outlines a construction for the purpose like that of Elements II
14, but in this and in his further explanations he is clearly guessing; thus at 44, 26-40
he reveals that he has no idea what terminology Theaetetus used when extending his
definition to solids. The importance of his testimony is what it shows about the state
of knowledge of a reasonably conscientious scholar in the second century A.D. He
knows other people's discussion of the question, but neither through them nor on his
own does he have access to genuine historical information (beyond the dialogue
itself) on Theodorus' work in the area of irrationals.
This should not necessarily dispose us to share Szabo's skepticism about Theodo-
rus' contribution.46 In later antiquity data on earlier Greek mathematics derived
largely from the history of the subject written by the Peripatetic Eudemus in the
second half of the fourth century B.C. What information was available would depend
very much on Eudemus' selection of relevant material. Notices of Theodorus outside
our dialogue do no more than remark on his distinction in general terms, which
44So Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," pp. 106-107, but see below.

45For what it is worth, the anonymous commentator 26, 6-8, agrees. Note also, with Vogt, "Entdeck-
ungsgeschichte," p. 101, that 147d 4 implies that squares with commensurable sides were omitted from the
sequence.
6Less radical doubts about how far Plato means to attribute to Theodorus an important new discovery
are expressed by Allman, Greek Geometry, p. 213; Heath, Greek Mathematics, Vol. I, p. 205 (inconsis-
tently with p. 155); A. Wasserstein, "Theaetetus and the History of the Theory of Numbers," Classical
Quarterly, 1958, N.S. 8:166, 171.
confirms only that there was substance to his reputation.47The picture would have
been clearer, of course, to the dialogue's first audience, which was contemporary with
Theaetetus and his work, but at least in regard to the question why nothing is said
about V2, later readers were perhaps hardly better off than ourselves.
Nevertheless, the commentator and his like saw that the question needs to be
asked, as that first audience must have asked it. The fact that Plato has Theodorus
leave out what was by far the most celebrated example of incommensurability seems
a rather convincing sign of an intention to demarcate Theodorus' own contribution.
Accordingly, modern authorities make the inference that Theodorus did not under-
take to prove the irrationality of 2 because it was an old and familiar (traditionally,
Pythagorean) result.48One can only agree that this is the most probable explanation.
At the other end of the lesson matters are less straightforward. As before, the
anonymous commentator (34, 32 ff.) raises the question why Theodorus stopped at
the square of 17 square feet and retails various answers. One suggestion obscurely
drags in Theodorus' interests in the theory of music,49taking a hint from the list of his
professional concerns at Theaetetus 145a: geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and
music. Another understands Plato to mean there was no particular reason for
Theodorus' stopping where he did. The commentator himself offers an improvement
having to do with the mathematically irrelevant fact that the 16-foot square is the
only one where the length of the perimeter corresponds (numerically) to the area
enclosed (4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 4 X 4), while the 17-foot square is the first with an area
greater (numerically) than the perimeter.50Again as before, these views carry no
authority, but we can profit from them nonetheless. In particular, we can learn what
a Greek ear made of the sentence at 147d 6, 'v be TOiT7 woS EVluX-TO, which has been
thought to hide a clue about the method used in Theodorus' incommensurability
proofs.
The sentence could mean three things: (a) "at that point for some reason [sc. for no
particular reason that Theaetetus knows of] he stopped," (b) "at that point for some
reason [sc. for some particular reason] he stopped," (c) "at that point he somehow got
47Plato, Politicus 257a; Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.2 10; lamblichus, De communi mathematica scientia
77, 24-78, 1 Festa; Proclus, In Euclidis Elementa I 66, 6-7 Friedlein. Proclus, ibid. 118, 7-8, on a question
about curves, is a passage cited by von Fritz, "Theodoros," p. 1812, and van der Waerden, Science
Awakening, p. 146, as an indication of Theodorus having other interests besides irrationals, but it may
refer to a different Theodorus; see Glenn R. Morrow, Proclus: A Commentary on the First Book of
Euclid's Elements (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 95, n. 70. Perhaps mention should also
be made of one other context in which Theodorus' name occurs: the story that Plato's travels after the
death of Socrates included, besides a stay at Megara, a visit to Theodorus in his home town of Cyrene
(Hermodorus apud Diogenes Laertius III 6). There have been varying evaluations of the scholarly
credentials of this story (see W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. IV, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 14-16), but if it is true, a compliment to Theodorus would fit well in
a dialogue which begins by paying respect to Plato's Megarian hosts.
48Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," p. 111; Sachs, De Theaeteto, pp. 49-52; Heath, Greek Mathematics,
Vol. 1, pp. 155-157; von Fritz, "Theodorus," p. 1813; van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 228-229,
Science Awakening, p. 110; Wasserstein, "Theaetetus," pp. 165-166; Burkert, Lore and Science, p. 463;
exceptionally, Frajese, "Perchle Teodoro," pp. 426 ff., offers a different account. Szabo, Anfdnge, pp.
40-43, 76, is naturally opposed to the traditional view, but he says nothing to meet the point (clearly stated
in Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte,"p. 111;von Fritz, "Theodoros," pp. 1812-1813; von Fritz, "Discovery,"
p. 385) that the omission of V2 shows something about Plato's intentions.
49For an attempt at clarification, see Wasserstein, "Theaetetus," pp. 172 ff.
50Similarlylamblichus, Theologoumena arithmeticae 11, 11-16 de Falco, also 29, 6-10; and E. Stamatis,
"IEn4 TOV AaOh7/aTaKOV XywpCoV TO OEatTLn'TOVTOD HXarTZo',' HpaKTtK& TiS XKa6muCa' 'AOrnV6, 1956,
31:10-16, who also develops connections with the theory of music. At 44, 1-20, the anonymous commen-
tator has an analogous idea about cubes.
504 M. F. BURNYEAT
tied up" (McDowell). The anonymous commentator saw the issue as one between (a)
and (b) (see 35, 13-2 1), and so have historians of mathematics in modern times. From
reading (a) Vogt inferred that if Theodorus had no particular reason for stopping at
\ 17, his method of proof must have been an endlessly reapplicable one: specifically,
an adaptation of the classic indirect proof by which it was shown that the diagonal of
a square (\72) must be incommensurable with its side (unity), otherwise the same
number will be both odd and even (see Aristotle, Prior Analytics 41a 26-31, 50a
37-8; Euclid, Elements X, App. 27).51 What is more, on the basis that the proof was
of a kind to be transferable from each case to the next without end, Vogt further
argued that it is really Theodorus who should be credited with discovering a general
law for linear incommensurability.52
If these seem large consequences to draw from a single ambiguous sentence,
reading (b) has supported the postulation of a mathematical reason for terminating at
17. From the classic papers of H. G. Zeuthen onward, much ingenuity has gone
into the search for a method of proof which would result in special difficulties at or
after \7.5 There is no need to discuss the various suggestions in detail here. The
point to be made is that there was no clear textual warrant for preferring a proof of
this character until in 1957 R. Hackforth pointed out that although for the verb
U'EUXeTo in the disputed sentence the lexicon gives the sense "came to a standstill,"
this is the only place cited for such a meaning.54Normally the verb would mean "be
held up, entangled" = reading (c). And if, as Hackforth argues and McDowell accepts
in his translation, that is its sense in the present passage, the case for a specifically
mathematical block at 17 becomes very strong indeed.55
Yet we see from the anonymous commentator that the philological argument is not
decisive. It is not only he that glosses eVeUxero without hesitation as "stopped" (34,
35: EUT'77; 35, 16 and 21: TrTYvaL),so also did the predecessor whom he reports as
favoring reading (a) and so too did lamblichus (Theologoumena arithmeticae 11,
14-15: wrravieOaca 7Wwc0).56 And the commentator's argument for (b) against this
reading looks to be on the basis that 7cwws,not that E'vEUxEro,
implies that Theodorus
had a reason for stopping where he did (35, 17-21): the commentator states that the
words 7wwco EVEUXerO show there was such a reason, and while this is not perfectly
clear, the conjectural reason he goes on to supply, concerning the numerical relations
between area and perimeter (see above), carries no suggestion of entanglement or
5"Vogt,"Entdeckungsgeschichte,"pp. 105-111; similarly von Fritz, "Theodoros," p. 1824; Wasserstein,

"Theaetetus,"pp. 165, 171. A different version of reading (a) is that of Szabo, Anfainge, p. 110;he supposes
that for pedagogical reasons Theodorus pretended to be unable to continue further, leaving his pupils to
puzzle out the way.
52Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," pp. 109-110.
53-H.G. Zeuthen, "Sur la constitution des livres arithmetiques des E1lementsd'Euclide et leur rapport a la
question de l'irrationalite," Oversigt over det Kongelige Danske VidenskabernesSelskabs Fordhandlinger,
1910, 395-435; "Sur les connaissances geometriques des grecs avant la reforme platonicienne de la
geometrie," ibid., 1913, 431-474; "Sur l'origine historique de la connaissance des quantit's irrationelles,"
ibid. 1915, 333-362. Cf. van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 249-254; contra, von Fritz, "Theodo-
ros," pp. 1817-1825, also the comprehensive review of Zeuthen's solution and its successors in Heller, "Ein
Beitrag."
54R. Hackforth, "Notes on Plato's Theaetetus," Mnemosyne, 1957, Ser. 4, 10:128, referring to H. G.
Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), s.v.
55ThusHackforth's note is used as clinching evidence for Zeuthen's general scheme of interpretation by
Malcolm S. Brown, "Theaetetus: Knowledge as Continued Learning," Journal of the History of Philoso-
phy, 1969, 7:367, who goes on to elaborate his own version of that scheme.
56Their view of the term is defended, against Hackforth, by Mansfeld, "Notes," pp. 113-114, with the
observation that the lexicon instances for "entangled" depend on a contextual understanding of the
difficulties concerned; the verb itself is neutral.
difficulty. There is no sign that Hackforth's account of the verb, and reading (c)
which it supports, was a live option in ancient controversy.
In the face of this impasse the question that needs to be asked is whether Plato has
any reason to leave a hint, let alone so indeterminate and ambiguous a hint, as to the
mathematical methods used in Theodorus' lesson. As every reader of the dialogue
knows, the mathematical scene illustrates a point about definition and examples.
When Theaetetus is first asked what knowledge is, he replies by giving examples of
knowledge: geometry and the other mathematical sciences he is learning with Theo-
dorus, cobblery and other crafts-each and all of these are knowledge (146cd).
Socrates puts him right with an analogy: his answer is like that of someone who, on
being asked what clay is, replies, "There is potters' clay, brickmakers'clay, and so on,
each and all of which are clay," giving a list of clays instead of the simple, straightfor-
ward answer, "It is earth mixed with liquid" (146d-147c). It is at this point that
Theaetetus says, "It looks easy now, Socrates, when you put it like that" (147c), and
proceeds to tell his story. Theodorus' part in the story does not depend on whether or
not he could continue past 17; his role is to provide examples of incommensurabil-
ity. His case-by-case proof of their incommensurability is mentioned57because, if one
is not going by a general definition or rule of the kind the boys devised, it is only via
construction and proof that examples of incommensurability are forthcoming: con-
struction to obtain a length such as f3, which is not marked on any ruler, and proof
to show that, divide how you will, you can find no unit to measure without remainder
both it and a 1-foot line. Beyond that, Plato has no motive to indicate to the reader
whether he has in mind any definite method of proof or any particular cause for
Theodorus to stop at 17.
This is not to deny, of course, the legitimacy of speculating about what methods
would be available to Theodorus or other fifth-century mathematicians for proving
various cases of incommensurability. But this must be an independent inquiry; there
is no good reason to expect that the answer is to be squeezed out of one ambiguous
sentence in Plato's dialogue.
FOURTH PROBLEM: THEAETETUS AND THE TENTH BOOK OF THE ELEMENTS
Euclid, Elements X 9 states that two lines are commensurable if the squares upon
them have to one another the ratio of a square number to a square number, and
conversely; that is, given lines A and B, A : B = n: m, where n and m are positive
integers, if and only if A2 : B2 n2:n2. A scholium to this theorem says that it is
alluded to in Plato's Theaetetus, only in less general form, and that it is Theaetetus'
57It is disputed whether c-ypa?E at 147d 3 connotes the actual theorem-proving (so Heath, Greek
Mathematics, Vol. I, p. 203, n. 2; contra, Szab6, "Der mathematische Begriff," p. 228, Anfange, p. 76), or
construction to prove the lines' existence (Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte,"p. 101; von Fritz, "Theodoros,"
pp. 1814-1815), or mere diagrammatic illustration (Szab6, "Der mathematische Begriff," pp. 224-225
[but cf. Anfdnge, p. 48]; McDowell's translation). If -ypa?e does not mean "was proving," it is left to
67rokaC'vcuw at 147d 4 to convey the idea of proving or showing. Not that doubts have not been raised
about laroAaivcuv, too, as to whether it signifies proving or a less formal procedure for showing, making
evident (see Szabo, "Der mathematische Begriff," pp. 231-232 [partially withdrawn, "Theaitetos," pp.
323-325, Anfa'nge, p. 76]; Heller, "Ein Beitrag," pp. 34-35, with further references), and as to its presence
in the text at all: Burnet omits it from the Oxford text (Platonis opera I, 2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1905), following one of the MSS, although there would seem to be little reason for this decision (most
modern authorities retain the word) unless t'ypaoe?does mean"was proving," so thata7rofaC'owcu is slightly
superfluous. The anonymous commentator had t17ro0avwov in his text and glossed the whole verb
complex -ypa?- . . . a7rowoa(vcvby ,Ec(KVVEV = was proving (25, 34-35, and 42), wh-ichseems the sensible
solution.
506 M. F. BURNYEAT
discovery58 Pappus also (72-5), although he is more concerned to bring out the
difference between Theaetetus' result and Elements X 9, which he credits to Euclid
himself, regards the latter as a deliberate generalization of the former, and he refers to
others who had taken the same line in terms which suggest that, as in modern times,
there had been some controversy on the precise relation between the two.
Now Pappus' treatment of the question is clearly based, so far as concerns
Theaetetus' contribution, entirely on Plato's dialogue. This virtually establishes that
there was no other evidence to go by and confirms scholarly doubts as to whether the
historical basis of the scholium is anything more than a conjecture inspired by
comparing dialogue and theorem.59 At the same time, the conjecture is not an
unthinking extrapolation from the dialogue, for the scholiast is as clear as Pappus
about the mathematical difference between the two results.
That difference is as follows: the Euclidean theorem explains when two lines stand
to one another in a whole number ratio n to m, but in the dialogue Theaetetus gave
conditions under which they have the more specific ratio n to 1; the latter is the less
general version of which the scholiast speaks. For example (the example used both in
the scholium and by Pappus) 18 and 8, each of which is incommensurable with
unity by Theaetetus' definition, are commensurable with each other on the Euclidean
criterion, since 18: 8 32 22.60 Regarding roots as numbers, only the dialogue
yields what for us would often be the significant thing, a determination of the
rationality or irrationality of \n7 ;61 but, as already emphasized, the Greeks did not
regard what we call -fn as a number. It is indicative of the geometrical orientation of
Greek mathematical thinking that Pappus should commend the Euclidean theorem
for its greater generality, as such an advance on Theaetetus' finding, and leave the
matter there.
No one today, however, would follow Pappus in attributing the discovery of
Elements X 9 to Euclid himself. Like the scholiast, Pappus is convinced that our
Theaetetus passage records a real contribution to mathematical knowledge, but in the
absence of firm historical data he resorts to inference and conjectural reconstruction.
His inference is that, because Elements X 9 is different from the definition in the
dialogue, Theaetetus cannot be credited with both. The scholiast's contrary view is
that, although they are different, he can. Our fourth problem is to make up our minds
where to stand on this dispute.
58Scholium 62 to Euclid, Elements X: J. L. Heiberg, Euclidis Elementa V (Leipzig: Teubner, 1888), pp.
450-452. There is evidence in another scholium that 62, or part of it, is due to Proclus; see J. L. Heiberg,
"Paralipomena zu Euklid," Hermes, 1903, 82:341, 345-346, who remains doubtful, having reason to think
that the attribution may be no more than a Byzantine scholar's guess. The attribution to Proclus is
accepted on the basis of Heiberg's evidence, but without mention of his reservations, by Sachs, De
Theaeteto, p. 12, n. 1; Brown, "Theaetetus," p. 362, n. 8.
59Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," p. 115; von Fritz, "Theaitetos," p. 1357; Szab6, "Theaitetos," pp.
336-338, 343; Anfainge, pp. 100-104, all of whom turn the doubt in favor of their general scheme of
interpretation (which in Vogt's case involves attributing the essentials of X 9 to Theodorus and in Szabo's
means that X 9 predates Theodorus). Van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 237-247, is more sanguine,
thinking that the scholiast's report may go back to a source acquainted with Theaetetus' own writ-
ings-e.g., a commentary on the dialogue (note, however, that there is no sign of such acquaintance in the
anonymous commentary which has come down to us).
601t is to be remarked that the ancients' grasp of this critical point is not always matched in modern
discussions: Szabo, "Theaitetos," pp. 337, 343, Anfange, p. 102, credits dialogue and theorem with "the
same classification of squares" (that is how he can argue that Elements X 9 must predate Theodorus);
Brown, "Theaetetus," p. 370, n. 30, is puzzled to know what difference in generality the scholiast could
intend. Nor have I been able to find in the modern literature any acknowledgement of the admirably clear
exposition of the matter which both Pappus and the scholiast provide.
'See Helmut Hasse and Heinrich Scholz, "Die Grundlagenkrisis der griechischen Mathematik,"
Kantstudien, 1928, 33:8 n.; von Fritz, "Theaitetos," pp. 1356-1357, 1359.
The problem is deepened by the one really useful item of information which
ancient readers did find: evidence that Theaetetus had done work on species of
irrational lines more complex than those defined in the Theaetetus, the medial,
binomial, and apotome, which are incommensurable with a given unit-line in square
as well as in length. Specifically, Pappus found it in Eudemus and wrote at the
beginning of his commentary (63; see also 138) as follows:
The aim of Book X of Euclid's treatise on the Elements is to investigate the commensu-
rable and incommensurable, the rational and irrational continuous quantities. This
science (or knowledge) had its origiit in the sect (or school) of Pythagoras, but underwent
an important development at the hands of the Athenian, Theaetetus, who had a natural
aptitude for this as for other branches of mathematics most worthy of admiration. One of
the most happily endowed of men, he patiently pursued the investigation of the truth
contained in these [branches of] science (or knowledge), as Plato bears witness for him in
the book which he called after him, and was in my opinion the chief means of establishing
exact distinctions and irrefragable proofs with respect to the above-mentioned quantities.
For . .. it was . . . Theaetetus who distinguished the powers (i.e. the squares) which are
commensurable in length, from those which are incommensurable (i.e. in length), and who
divided the more generally known irrational lines according to the different means,
assigning the medial line to geometry, the binomial to arithmetic, and the apotome to
harmony, as is stated by Eudemus, the Peripatetic.62
In the last sentence of this excerpt, the clause about Theaetetus distinguishing
commensurable and incommensurable powers is probably of no independent worth:
Pappus having already indicated that the Theaetetus was his starting inspiration, the
chances are that this part of his report derives directly from there. The probability
can be increased by noticing a certain disconnection between this clause and its
sequel: had Eud&musbeen the author of the whole, one would expect the point to be
made that Theaetetus distinguished lines commensurable in square but not in length
from those incommensurable in square as well as in length.63Eudemus may still have
said something to encourage the practice of treating the Theaetetus as an historical
source, but it is the remainder of the report, entirely independent of the dialogue,
which carries his authority. As such it is pure gold.
The medial, binomial, and apotome occupy a central position in the study of
irrationals in Book X of the Elements. Accordingly, modern historians infer that the,
theory of irrationals in Book X is in substance the work of Theaetetus.64To support
the inference they can point, not only to the report from Eudemus, who wrote before
Euclid, but also to important connections between Book X and Book XIII of the
62Thomson and Junge, Commentary of Pappus; translator's parentheses. For an explanation of the
reference to different means, see Thomas L. Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements (2nd ed.;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), Vol. III, p. 4.
63Thisconsideration is due to von Fritz, "Theaitetos," p. 1355. Szabo, Anfdnge, pp. 103-104, reaches the
same conclusion with less argument.
64Sachs, De Theaeteto, pp. 43 ff.; Heath, Greek Mathematics I, pp. 211-212; von Fritz, "Theaitetos," pp.
1355 ff.; van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 235 ff.; Science Awakening, pp. 168 ff. "In substance" is
said advisedly, because Euclid's presentation is at various points (including the proof of X 9) adapted to
developments in the theory of proportions later than Theaetetus, who is thought to have worked with an
earlier, less general concept of proportionality; see Oskar Becker, "Eudoxos-Studien I: Eine voreudoxische
Proportionenlehre und ihre Spuren bei Aristoteles und Euklid," Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der
Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik, Abt. B: Stud., Bd. 2, 1932-1933, 311-333; von Fritz, "Theaitetos,"
pp. 1358, 1359-1360, 1362-1363; van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 233, 241-249, Science Awaken-
ing, pp. 159, 175 ff. (Heath, Mathematics in Aristotle, pp. 81-83, has reservations about Becker's
reconstruction; Szabo, "Ein Beileg fur die voreudoxische Proportionenlehre?," Archiv far Begriffsge-
schichte, 1964, 9:151-171, mounts a wholesale attack on it, but there is no doubt about the main point, that
a certain amount of adaptation has gone into Bk. X.)
508 M. F. BURNYEAT
Elements, which incorporates Theaetetus' other known achievement--his work on

the five regular polyhedra.65Van der Waerden concludes: "The author of Book XIII
knew the results of Book X, but ... moreover, the theory of Book X was developed
with a view to its applications in Book XIII. This makes inevitable the conclusion
that the two books are due to the same author. We already know his name: Theaete-
tus.",6
Once again, let us remind ourselves that the full extent of Theaetetus' mathematical
achievements would have been familiar to many in the audience on the occasion of
the first reading of the Theaetetus in the Academy, an occasion which must in part
have had the character of a memorial to a departed colleague. Socrates the Younger,
whose early collaboration with Theaetetus is mentioned again at Sophist 218b (cf.
Politicus 266a 6-7), could well have been alive and present in person, now a middle-
aged member of the Academy. We know from Plato's Republic (528b ff.) and
Timaeus (53d ff.)67how highly Theaetetus' work in solid geometry was valued in the
Academy. If the solid geometry is in turn founded on a theory of irrationals which we
can credit to Theaetetus on the authority of Eudemus, we can hardly remain in doubt
where the thoughts of that first audience would turn when they heard the narrative of
Theodorus' lesson and the boys' definition of incommensurability. They must surely
have felt themselves carried back to the beginning of an intellectual journey of great
distinction. On Szabo's picture, it will be recalled, they would be savoring the nayvete
of a boy who thinks that he and his companion have made a discovery when really
they were deliberately led by Theodorus to work out for themselves a couple of
simple classifications long familiar to mathematicians.68So read, the scene as Plato
composed it would indeed be, to use Szabo's own comparison, a riddle to match the
smile of La Gioconda. But then, astonishingly, Szabo simply declines to discuss the
testimony of Eudemus concerning Theaetetus' historical involvement with the higher
irrationals.69
The significance of Eudemus' testimony, to repeat, is that it enables us to see the
definition in the dialogue as pointing forward to a large body of mature work in the
theory of irrationals and in solid geometry: we can form some picture of the historical
process which gave rise to Eudemus' more general statement (apud Proclus, In
Euclidis Elementa, I 66, 14-18 Friedlein) that Theaetetus was one of those by whom
"the theorems were increased in number and brought into a more scientific arrange-
ment. "70
The question on which Pappus and the scholiast disagreed can now take second
place as largely a question of transmission: the question, that is, who put Elements X
9 into its present form in the process of transmission and adaptation which incorpor-
ated Theaetetus' original work into Books X and XIII of the Elements. It is acknowl-
edged that the proof of X 9 as we have it must be a later addition.71 Among those
who could have lent a hand in the course of transmission we hear of one Hermotimus
of Colophon who "pursued further the investigations already begun by Eudoxus and
65Theevidential basis for the latter attribution, which in all probability goes back to Eudemus also, is
Scholium 1 to Euclid, Elements XIII, Suidas s.v. 0EkaT77TOS; see Sachs, Die funfplatonischen K6rper,
Philologische Untersuchungen, Heft 24 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1917); Heath, Greek Mathematics, Vol. I, pp.
158-162; von Fritz, "Theaitetos," pp. 1363 ff.
66Van der Waerden, Science Awakening, pp. 173-174.
67Cf. also Epinomis 990d.
69Szab6, "Theaitetos," p. 344; Anfange, pp. 103-104; similarly with Theaetetus' solid geometry, Szab6,
"Theaitetos," p. 345.
70This and the following quotations from Proclus are given in the translation of Morrow, Proclus.
71See n. 64 above.
Theaetetus" (Proclus, In Euclidis Elementa I 67, 20-22), and later Euclid himself, in
composing the Elements, is credited with "systematizing many of the theorems of
Eudoxus, perfecting many of those of Theaetetus, and putting in irrefutable demon-
strable form propositions that had been rather loosely established by his predeces-
sors" (Proclus, In Euclidis Elementa 68, 6-10). But the central idea of X 9 must be
Theaetetus' own, since it is fundamental to Book X as a whole.
Finally, a remark about the brief allusion at the end of Theaetetus' story (148b) to
an extension of his definition to solids. Nothing corresponding to this is to be found
in Book X, and it remains slightly obscure what the details would be.72But of one
thing we may now be sure: it is not, as Vogt suggested, an unfounded analogy
inserted by Plato to indicate Theaetetus' youthful haste.73 The only reasonable
explanation of so brief an allusion is that it is a further trace of Theaetetus' mathe-
matics, confirming Plato's intention to commemorate a historical achievement.
DEFINITION AND DIALECTIC
There is an often-quoted remark of Reidemeister's which poses the question whether

Theaetetus' reputation as a mathematician is not just a legend that crystallized
around the character in Plato's dialogue.74I have been making a case for the opposite
view, that a proper dramatic appreciation of the character in the dialogue is only to
be gained by recognizing that the "legend" is genuine history, and recent history at
that, framed by Plato between the backward reference in the prefatory encomium
and the forward reference in the narrative of Theodorus' lesson. I have been endeav-
oring to assemble and assess the fragments of evidence which are all we have to fill
in the substance of the intellectual achievements thus commemorated in the dialogue.
The question that now remains is what relevance the mathematical episode has for
the main business of the dialogue-the philosophical inquiry into knowledge.
This further question has not received the careful attention it deserves. Historians
of mathematics have tended to isolate the episode from its wider context, as if the
commemorative function was its sole dramatic purpose; van der Waerden expressly
remarks that it "gives the impression of having been dragged in," that "it does not fit
very well the philosophical discussion it has to introduce."75 On the other hand,
scholars who have looked for a philosophical moral have tended to find it in some
purely literary, symbolic connection with other parts of the dialogue.
According to one suggestion of this kind, the connection is that in the dialogue
"knowledge turns out, whatever unit of comparison we employ, to be incommensu-
rable with opinion 76 _a rather imprecise metaphor of which there is absolutely no
sign in Plato's text. Other correspondences have been sought between Theaetetus'
powers and the active and passive powers which figure in the Heraclitean theory of
72Seethe anonymous commentator 42, I ff.; Sachs, De Theaeteto, pp. 56-57; Heath, Greek Mathematics,
Vol. I, p. 212; von Fritz, "Theaitetos," p. 1360; van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 237-238, 246,
Science Awakening, pp. 166-167.
73Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," pp. 115-117, 127.
74Kurt Reidemeister, Das exakte Denken der Griechen (Hamburg: Claasen & Goverts, 1949), p. 24,
basing himself on the fact that Pappus has no direct knowledge of Theaetetus' work. Reidemeister's
remark is quoted by Szabo, "Der mathematische Begriff," p. 230, n. 27, with the comment, "Je mehr ich
die voreuklidische Mathematik der Griechen kennenlerne, umso berechtigter scheint mir dieser Zweifel"
(modified in Szabo, "Theaitetos," pp. 309, 345); it is quoted by van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," p. 248,
with puzzled surprise that anyone can remain so skeptical.
75Van der Waerden, Science Awakening, pp. 142, 166.
76Robert S. Brumbaugh, Plato's Mathematical Imagination (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1954), p. 40; a variant version of the same idea is put forward by Gwynneth Matthews, Plato's Epistemol-
ogy (London: Faber, 1972), p. 20.
510 M. F. BURNYEAT
perception at 156a ff.;7 or again, between the former, lines commensurable in square
only, and the primary elements of which Socrates dreams at 201e-202b, which in
themselves cannot be expressed by a logos (account), whereas combinations of them
(syllables) are expressible.78 Now certainly, Plato is well able to enjoy a structural
correspondence of this kind. But it would be uncharacteristic of him to let it become a
substitute for serious philosophical content. Whatever the symbolic connections, we
need a moral of greater consequence if we are really to integrate Theaetetus' story
into the philosophical discussion.
Let us go back to the story and its setting within the methodological preliminaries
to the discussion of knowledge. As already noted, the story illustrates a point about
definition and examples: Socrates wants a definition of knowledge, not examples,
and Theaetetus volunteers his mathematical definition to show that he has now
grasped the true nature of the Socratic question What is knowledge? It is thus the
definition which is highlighted as the climax of the story. Equally, it is the definition
which calls forth Socrates' strongest commendation (148b) and which is set up as a
model for Theaetetus to follow in answering the question about knowledge (148d). In
all these ways the definition is the dramatic focus of the scene. What, then, we must
ask, is the role of a definition in a Socratic discussion of the type which follows in the
dialogue?
Every student of ancient philosophy knows that one of the things that may safely
be attributed to the historical Socrates is the search for general definitions of ethical
terms (see Aristotle, Metaphysics 1078b 17-30). What is less often remarked upon is
the significance of the fact that the Socratic search for a definition begins with a
definition.
A Socratic discussion of the type exemplified in Plato's early dialogues and, on a
larger scale, in the first part of the Theaetetus (151e-183c) begins with Socrates'
interlocutor proposing a definition which is then tested for validity. It has to be seen
whether the definition is compatible, on the one hand with such examples of the
problematic concept as may be volunteered or admitted by the interlocutor, on the
other with any general beliefs or principles the interlocutor may have that bear upon
the subject of discussion. Whenever, under the piessure of Socrates' questioning, an
inconsistency comes to light in the interlocutor's overall position, some appropriate
adjustment has to be made: the definition is modified or abandoned, or it is main-
tained at the price of jettisoning ideas incompatible with it, however plausible or
commonsensical they may seem to be. As the interlocutor is brought gradually to see
where his thesis leads--and it is important that the full implications of a definition
are not apparent straight off--he has to reflect at each stage whether to go on with it
and how far he can honestly revise other beliefs to arrive at a coherent overall theory.
In other words, for the Socratic method of dialectic a definition is in the first instance
a starting point for investigation, the worth of which will be proved only over the full
range of inquiry to which it leads.79
"Kenneth M. Sayre, Plato's Analytical Method (Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press, 1969),
pp. 60-61, 95; Brown, "Theaetetus," pp. 376 ff. (although I am not persuaded by Brown's interpretation
[see also notes 55, 58, 60 above], I salute his attempt, unique in the literature on the dialogue, to treat the
mathematical and philosophical aspects of our passage with equal seriousness for the sake of a satisfactory
integration of the two).
78Dies, Theaetetus, p. 128; M. F. Burnyeat, "The Material and Sources of Plato's Dream," Phronesis,
1970, 15:105-106. This comparison has in its favor the fact that in expounding his dream of elements and
syllables Socrates uses words like &Ao-yosand pf7T6s, which also occur as key terms in mathematical
contexts dealing with irrationals.
79A detailed defense of this view of the Socratic method, with special reference to the first part of the
Now the most extended, the most highly structured specimen we possess of the
Socratic method at work in this type of discussion is the elaboration and critique of
the thesis that knowledge is perception in the first part of the Theaetetus--none other
than the discussion which our mathematical passage introduces, devoted to the
definition of knowledge as perception which is Theaetetus' eventual answer to
Socrates' request to do for knowledge what he and his companion had done for
incommensurability. This is ample justification for us to view the model mathemati-
cal definition in the same methodological perspective, as a starting point for investi-
gation rather than a finished result or completion.
Nothing, after all, is said in the dialogue about the boys proving their proposition80
or putting it to work in any mathematically interesting way. The proof,8' the
applications, were yet to come, as Plato's audience would know, and without a proof
a mathematical proposition lacks much of its significance. Thus within the dialogue,
confining ourselves to the details actually recounted there, Theodorus' contribution
takes the palm, being furnished with proofs, and Theaetetus is still very much the
junior partner. Which is as it should be, given the dramatic situation. The mathemati-
cal importance of his definition will emerge only in the future accomplishments which
Socrates is said to have predicted (142d).
What we can detect in the dialogue is an approach to the handling of irrational
quantities which was to be seminal for Theaetetus' mature theory--here I quote van
der Waerden's comment on the treatment of the higher irrationals in Elements X:
All these proofs are based on one fundamentalidea which runs as a guidingthread
through the entire book: to proveproperties of any type of line, one constructs a square on
this line and one investigates the properties of this square. For instance, to prove that a
binomialcan not be a medial, it is shown that the squareon a binomialcan not be a
medialarea.
Properlyspeakingthis basicidea alreadyturnsup in the firstpartof BookX andin the
dialogue Theaetetus,for Theaetetusderivedthe incommensurability of certainline seg-
ments from the ratio of their squares.82
If this is on the right lines, it is in a seminal approach to the handling of irrational
quantities, quite as much as in the particular theorem of Elements X 9, that we should
look for the connection between the definition in the dialogue and the achievements
for which Theaetetus came to be esteemed; it would be no objection that working out
the theory may have involved him in some modification of the original thought. In
any case, however the details of the connection are to be drawn in, what matters for
our purposes is the evidence we have assembled of a substantial contribution by
Theaetetus to the impressive theory of irrationals in Book X of Euclid's Elements.
Given that, we can read the passage 147c-148b as celebrating less than a great step
forward in the annals of mathematics, yet much more than a schoolboy's exercise.
The scene before us is the birth of a highly fruitful idea, a youthful beginning, not a
completion, to a far-reaching study of irrational quantities.83
Theaetetus, is given in my paper "Examples in Epistemology: Socrates, Theaetetus and G. E. Moore,"

Philosophy, 1977, 52: 381-398.
80Hencethere is no reason to follow Sayre, Plato's Analytic Method, pp. 57-59, in calling it an example
of knowledge, i.e., of the subject proposed for the dialogue to discuss.
8"Which,of course, we do not possess; for suggestions, see Sachs, De Theaeteto, pp. 52 ff.; von Fritz,
"Theaitetos," pp. 1359-1360; van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik," pp. 205-206, 236-237, Science Awaken-
ing, pp. 166-167.
82Van der Waerden, Science Awakening, p. 169.
83lt is, of course, impossible to say whether the study continued to be in any sense a joint effort with the
younger Socrates, although, as already noted, their early collaboration is emphasized again at Sophist
218b (cf. Politicus 266a 6-7).
512 M. F. BURNYEAT
So read, the passage leads naturally on to the main philosophical discussion.84The

definition of knowledge as perception is also a beginning and pivot for a systematic
investigation, an epistemological investigation the interest of which is not lessened by
its negative outcome, the eventual refutation of the definition. The parallel between
the philosophical definition and its mathematical model has to do with the value of a
definition in giving impetus and direction to inquiry. It is not any and every definition
which can do this; that a definition states necessary and sufficient conditions for the
application of some concept is no guarantee of its leading further, not even of its
being genuinely explanatory. Thus it is important that the rule found by Theaetetus
and his companion not only gives a direct and straightforward method of generating
both Theodorus' examples and an infinite series of further cases; it also offers a rubric
under which the properties of incommensurable lines can be systematically investi-
gated and general theorems proved.85For the purposes of the dialogue Plato's appeal
to an actual example of fruitful definition in mathematics brings out in a peculiarly
forceful way that, besides giving necessary and sufficient conditions, a definition
should be of systematic interest.86
CONCLUSION
I have no doubt that in future histories of mathematics Theaetetus' story will

continue to be told, notwithstanding Szab6's efforts to discredit it. It is a good story,
and a credible story--provided one attends soberly to what is claimed and what is not
claimed for Theodorus and Theaetetus respectively, and provided one is sensitive to
its dramatic function within the dialogue. It is also an indispensable story, without
which we would have no idea how to fill the gap between the Greeks' first encounter
with incommensurability and the incorporation of incommensurable magnitudes into
a general theory of proportions by Eudoxus, an event which took place very close in
time to Plato's writing of the Theaetetus.87
What I have tried to do in this paper is, first, to vindicate the essential historicity of
the story rather more carefully than has been done hitherto, making particular use of
the results of ancient scholarship; and second, to bring out the philosophical sense of
the scene, its contribution to the methodological preliminaries to the inquiry into
knowledge. My essential claim has been that these are not two separate and
independent tasks.88
84Mansfeld,"Notes," p. 114, connects the passage rather with its more immediate sequel, the account of
Socrates' art of intellectual midwifery (148e-151d). This is because he accepts Szabo's view that Theaete-
tus' achievement is at best a rediscovery (see n. 5 above) and puts Theodorus' lesson parallel to Socrates'
maieutic questioning. The parallel is at least doubtful, but the main objection is the sum of objections to
Szabo's overall interpretation.
85Cf.the anonymous commentator, 44, 43 ff., who sees the merit of the definition in terms of gains in
clarity and generality.
860ne may compare here an earlier discussion of definition at Meno 75b ff.: two definitions of figure are
contrasted, one identifying it as what invariably accompanies color, the other and more favored saying
that figure is the limit of a solid. Socrates does not say much about why he prefers the latter definition, but
one reason may be the way it is tailored to fit into a systematic, orderly investigation of geometrical
entities; for a concern with the proper organization of inquiry runs all through the Meno, coming to the
fore at 71ab, 81d, 86d ff.
87Thisconsideration is rightly urged against Szabo, "Theaitetos," by Kurt von Fritz, Platon, Theaetet
und die antike Mathematik (2nd ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969), Anhang, p.
73, n. 10 (but Szab6, Anfdnge, pp. 131 ff., has his own views on what can be credited to Eudoxus).
88Noteadded in proof, Sept. 1978: This paper was completed and accepted for publication before I had
access to Wilbur Richard Knorr, The Evolution of the Euclidean Elements (Dordrecht/Boston: Reidel,
1975). Knorr's massive reconstruction of the early history of incommensurability includes a careful
analysis of the Theaetetus passage which agrees both in general tenor and on many points of detail with
that offered here. We agree also in disagreeing with Szab6, whose reading of the passage continues to be
influential (for a recent example, see Hans-Joachim Waschkies, Von Eudoxos zu Aristoteles, Amsterdam:
Grilner, 1977, p. 80 n.1O). This happy convergence of independent opinions breaks down, however, on one
important issue: the sentence at 147d 6, ev 6- TaVTr) wS (LV(aX(To.
It is not too much to say that large chunks of Knorr's impressive rewriting of the history of early Greek
mathematics stand or fall by the thesis that this sentence means "but in this one [sc. the 17-foot power] for
some reason he encountered difficulty" (Knorr, p. 62). That is, of the three versions distinguished above
Knorr adopts reading (c), with the additional feature that ev Tav'Tr is given the specific meaning "in this
Uvoaytg." Knorr insists on the specific meaning, as opposed to vaguer expressions like "at this point," so
as to require that Theodorus came to a standstill at 17 because of a difficulty at 17, not (as has often been
proposed) because of a difficulty soon afterwards at 19 (ibid., pp. 81-83). And he offers a method of proof
using Pythagorean number triples which both necessitates a case-by-case treatment and fails at 17 (ibid.,
Ch. 6).
As stated the argument is less than conclusive, though it seems to have convinced at least one reviewer
(Sabetai Unguru in History of Science, 1977, 15:217). There is nothing illogical or objectionable about
saying "At the 17-foot square he came to a standstill because of a difficulty just ahead at 19"(\/18 is an
uninteresting case, as it reduces to 3 X \/2). After all, the previous sentence is naturally taken, as by the
anonymous commentator (34, 15-28) and modern readers generally, to imply that Theodorus successfully
effected the incommensurability proof for the case of 17 (oVfTw) must resume ,ypaO ....w7ro0avcvv). In
denying this, Knorr would have done better to appeal to philological evidence that in conjunction with
1Evxopoatthe preposition -v may introduce that by which someone is entangled or held up (see Liddell-
Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, sv iveX(). In other words, he could translate "by this one he was held
up." But the dispute over where the difficulty is to be located is beside the point unless it is shown that
tvevXrTO here does mean "got entangled" or "stopped because of a difficulty."
Against my evidence (above) that this is not the meaning of the verb here, Knorr has nothing to offer but
Hackforth's now widely accepted but mistaken assertion that it is what the verb normally means. The truth
is, as Mansfeld observed (n. 56 above), it is what the verb often (not always) signifies in context, not its
intrinsic meaning. The idea of a difficulty or encumbrance has to come from the context; it is not brought
to the context by the verb as part of its semantic contribution to the sentence in which it is used. Thus to
vindicate his translation Knorr would have to find some implication in the context, independent of the
occurrence of PEiXoytat, to the effect that the 17-foot square was a source of difficulty. And this he cannot
do.
On the contrary, if the context implies anything on the matter, it rather implies that there was no
difficulty at 17. The very next sentence includes the phrase "since the 6vvaoYEvg [sc. the 6vV6yEts with
incommensurable sides--see above; Knorr, p. 68, agrees] were turning out to be unlimited in number."
How could Theaetetus say such a thing if Theodorus' proofs had just broken down at the 12th example in
the series from 3 on? Knorr has an answer (p. 85 and Ch. 6): Theodorus' proofs were such as to show, first,
that a square with area given by any number of the form 4N + 3 (e.g., 3,7,11,15,19 . . . ) has its side
incommensurable with unity; second, that the same holds for any number of the form 8N + 5 (e.g.,
5,13,21,29 ... ), and so on. Each of the examples mentioned in the dialogue stands for an infinite class of
cases falling under the same proof. Failure comes at 17 because this is of the form 8N + 1, which fits 9, 25,
and all odd square numbers; only if the number is not a square number does it give rise to incommensura-
bility--and this additional condition is, of course, the one that Theaetetus took as primary for his
generalization. Ingenious--but we must ask whether Plato could expect his reader to understand, from the
phrase "since the 6vv4yEts; were turning out to be unlimited in number," that Theodorus' proof method
must have been such as to yield an infifiity of cases each time it was successfully applied. I find it difficult to
think that he could. But if not, Theaetetus' supposition of an infinite or indefinite number of cases of
incommensurability looks incompatible with the idea that tEL'(XTrOrefers to a difficulty or entanglement,
whether at 17 or at 19. One ambiguous sentence in the dialogue is not a sound historical basis for Knorr's
confident speculations about the character of Theodorus' proofs and ensuing developments in the study of
incommensurability.
A further difficulty is that if Theodorus proceeded in the manner described, the move to Theaetetus'
generalization would be obvious. Knorr agrees (p. 86). Theaetetus did not discover the theorem he states in
the dialogue, but in later life he proved what for Theodorus had remained unproven conjecture. But this
too is contrary to the indications of the dialogue, where the general definition of incommensurability is
presented as something the boys themselves thought of seeking, and found (147d 7, e 2-3). It is no good
professing to take the dialogue with the utmost seriousness as historical evidence and then ignoring vital
bits of the evidence it supplies.
I admire Knorr's work. Its impact will be felt in every department of the study of Greek mathematics.
But his treatment of evidence is not always as sober as it should be. (One last, small example: readers
unfamiliar with such matters should not suppose that Knorr has anything but the most nugatory grounds
for asserting [pp. 37 and 55, n. 44] that Theodorus did not begin his work in geometry until after 430
B.c.-when he would be 30 or 40 years old.) Plato's rendering of the young Theaetetus' story has the
restraint of an Attic grave stele. If we respect that restraint, we will be content with what he has seen fit to
tell us.

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The Philosophical Sense of Theaetetus' Mathematics

T HERE IS A WELL-KNOWN PASSAGE in Plato's Theaetetus (147d-148b)

Received September 1976; revised/accepted November 1976.

ISIS, 1978, 69 (No. 249) 489

(TVp4LETpoI 7-^ 7rotat'a, Kat oV'TW Kara plav EKaar?7v 7rpoaLpov- 5

rTXELWvAarroV4KL9s fi 'EXrrwv 7rXEovaKts y(yvErat, MELCwv

ai3 ?XflI,arTL P K7K?1&ptLOMov Ka4Taa,.Ev.

5 THEAETETUS. Still, Socrates, I wouldn't be able to answer your question about

FIRST PROBLEM: THE EXTENT OF THEAETETUS' ORIGINALITY

It is an obvious point that 2 should be the first oblong number. If Theaetetus

SECOND PROBLEM: THEAETETUS' TERMINOLOGY

(148b) it is defined to denominate incommensurable lines in opposition to the term

26TETpaywvElv, used here at 148a7.

Since the 6viwats'E were turningout42to be unlimitedin number,it occurredto us to

39Norwith respect to a couple of lesser terminological inexactitudes detected by Szabo, Anfitnge, p. 83

which could be endlessly reapplied.44Therefore, it is likely that, in context, "all these

THIRD PROBLEM: THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THEODORUS' LESSON

44So Vogt, "Entdeckungsgeschichte," pp. 106-107, but see below.

5"Vogt,"Entdeckungsgeschichte,"pp. 105-111; similarly von Fritz, "Theodoros," p. 1824; Wasserstein,

FOURTH PROBLEM: THEAETETUS AND THE TENTH BOOK OF THE ELEMENTS

Elements, which incorporates Theaetetus' other known achievement--his work on

DEFINITION AND DIALECTIC

There is an often-quoted remark of Reidemeister's which poses the question whether

Theaetetus, is given in my paper "Examples in Epistemology: Socrates, Theaetetus and G. E. Moore,"

So read, the passage leads naturally on to the main philosophical discussion.84The

I have no doubt that in future histories of mathematics Theaetetus' story will

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