ii USELESS KNOWLEDGE 41 



Are you not now extending your explanations so 

 far that your paradox is in danger of becoming a truism ? 

 Can you any longer give me an instance of really useless 

 knowledge ? 



Of course not, Plato, seeing that my contention is that 

 whatever is truly knowledge is useful, and whatever is 

 not useful is not truly knowledge, while in proportion as 

 any alleged knowledge is seen to be useless it is in 

 danger of being declared false ! The only illustration I 

 can give, therefore, is of knowledge falsely so-called, 

 which is thought to be useful, but is really useless, and 

 therefore false or, if you prefer, unmeaning. 



Even of that we should like an example. 



I see, Plato, that you are willing to embroil me with 

 most of the philosophers in my world. For if I am to 

 speak what is in my mind, I must say that knowledge of 

 the Absolute or, what comes to the same, of the Un 

 knowable, seems to me to be of the kind you require. 

 Aristotle, no doubt, might speak similarly of your own 

 Idea of the Good. 



Oh, but I intended it to be supremely useful both in 

 knowledge and in action. 



No doubt you did, but because you were not able 

 to make this plain, Aristotle would not admit it to be 

 true. 



We had better let bygones be bygones. 



Very well ; let me in that case give you another 

 example, which now concerns us nearly, of knowledge 

 which seems false, because it seems useless. I mean 

 knowledge about the world in which we now are, 

 regarded with the eyes of those whom in a little while 

 I shall no longer dare to call benighted dwellers in the 

 Cave. Until we can make our world useful to them, it 

 is false : I am a liar and you are the unreal figments of 

 my creative imagination. 



You quite alarm me. Can you not devise a way, 

 then, whereby we might prove ourselves useful, and so 

 existent, to your friends ? 



Certainly. Could you not appear at a meeting of 



