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[201a] but if we stay still, we shall discover nothing.

Theaetetus
You are right; let us go on with our investigation.

Socrates
Well, then, this at least calls for slight investigation; for you have a whole profession which declares that true opinion is not knowledge.

Theaetetus
How so? What profession is it?

Socrates
The profession of those who are greatest in wisdom, who are called orators and lawyers; for they persuade men by the art which they possess, not teaching them, but making them have whatever opinion they like. Or do you think there are any teachers so clever as to be able, in the short time allowed by the water-clock,1


1 The length of speeches in the Athenian law courts was limited by a water-clock.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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