BEGINNING OF THE DISCUSSION OF THEAETETUS' FIRST ANSWER

allows us to perceive all the objects of perception through the senses as instruments'. It is therefore the relationality of the self which makes it possible for the corporeal to be structured organically. Only in this way can a corporeal structure be a body. Something can be a body in the proper sense only in so far as it is rooted in a soul, i.e. a soul does not in any way get 'breathed into' a body.

How then is a decision arrived at concerning the first statement of Theaetetus? In what way does the dialogue thus achieve its goal?

1. The argument proceeds by demonstrating that αἴσθησις as sensory sensation is necessarily grounded in something else which first makes it possible for things to show themselves and be perceived. Theaetetus - as we also do today - takes 'perception' in the broadest possible sense. αἴσθησις now becomes restricted to sensory sensations ('we see a tree' = 'we see it with our eyes') and is thereby underdetermined, because in truth it has a richer essential constitution. The word αἴσθησις is rejected, but it is nevertheless preserved in the sense of per-ceive [ver-nehmen], to have before oneself, δια-νοεῖν. Only now, therefore, do we see what Theaetetus actually intends. At 184 d 4 it is also stated that the 'soul' is 'what does the perceiving'. Theaetetus does not stand for any kind of 'sensualism', as if he wanted to say that 'knowledge is sensation' in the sense of having sensations (affections) and 'experiences'.

2. The argument proceeds by inquiring into that with which or through which (τῷ) we perceive. The eyes and ears: what are they? This question leads us to the ground of the relationship between αἴσθησις and φαντασία, thus to the ground of the ταὐτόν, of the belonging together in one, of the singularity and its unity, unification, gathering, presence, unhiddenness, deconcealment. It then emerges that the 'relationship' does not consist of and in the instruments of the body. Instead, the relationship (συντείνειν) is ἰδέα, seeing of the sighted, having sight (νοεῖν) of the visible (look, presence): envisability. The relationship is the soul itself. It is not firstly soul on its own account, and then, in addition, a relationship to the things.

3. To what degree the soul is now uncovered, and the aim of the dialogue fulfilled, requires no further discussion. 'Soul' serves to name the relationship to being (presence of the look) and thus to unhiddenness. The body and its physical constitution is admitted into this relationship, a relationship within which the historical human being is.