Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Theaetetus

360-355 B.C.

"Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is false and lifeless, or fertile and true."

Soc. Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is false and lifeless, or fertile and true. And again I resemble the midwives in being barren of wisdom, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to pronounce upon any subject myself, is very just--the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but has not allowed me to bring forth. I myself, then, am not particularly wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul. But of those who converse with me, some at first appear utterly stupid; and all, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite clear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they give birth are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery.
(150b-150d, p 244)

Body::Midwifery::Birth

Reading Margreta de Grazia’s "Imprints: Shakespeare, Gutenberg, and Descartes," in Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005): 29-58, p. 32.

Hamilton, E. and Cairns, H., Eds. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Bollingen Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.

10/07/2013