The Ontological Background of the Wax Block Model in Plato’s Theaetetus

The Wax Block Model (WBM), although much discussed in the literature on Plato's Theaetetus, includes an aspect that deserves further study due to its relationship with Plato's thought and ontological presuppositions. This article aims to investigate if and how much the materiality of wax in WBM implies consequences on the characterization of the cognitive process. The first and obvious implication of the presumed material nature of the soul is the justifiability of the differences among individual souls and, therefore, among individual cognitive abilities. Undoubtedly, this issue has some relevance and must be reconsidered. However, less attention has been devoted to further implications of a broader scope: the assumption of a model like WBM, in which the human mind is compared with material stuff, has inevitable effects on the way in which cognitive procedures are described. Indeed, from a Platonic perspective the reference to materiality implies a reference to the empirical domain; consequently, the abilities and cognitive procedures of the soul, insofar as they are typified according to the WBM, are conceived as capable of reflecting exclusively the characteristics of the empirical domain. On the basis of this, it will be shown that the epistemological characteristics of the cognitive procedures involved by the WBM correspond to the ontological characteristics of the empirical domain; in particular, it will be shown that the way in which the memory is depicted is determined by this connection with empiricity and does not represent the way in which Plato conceives memory in other dialogues; the same is true for the way in which the whole dynamics of cognition and the related temporality are presented. These considerations will account for the structural insufficiency of the WBM and will provide a new interpretation of its assumption and its subsequent rejection in Plato’s Theaetetus.