Paradigms: Knowledge and Reality [274e–83b]

The Stranger responds to young Socrates' assertion about the justified length of the account with a comment combining approval and concern: "No wonder; but perhaps you might change your mind". The Stranger adds length and brevity to excess and deficiency, since all might be factors belonging to measurement as it pertains to accounts of this sort. The Stranger has covertly introduced value considerations into the collection funding his analysis of measurement as the components of that collection emerged from critical reaction to the account of wool weaving. The first type of measurement determines whether something given is greater or less in magnitude than another given thing; the second type concerns what the artist or craftsman necessarily employs before producing a given thing. The Stranger is speaking about the existence of the arts of measurement, not about what these arts measure. An art is an activity performed by humans.