¹ Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit, Zweite Auflage, Bern, 1954Google Scholar. See also the French translation in Questions II, Gallimard, Paris, 1968Google Scholar. Translation of quotations in this article is mine. For a critique of the Heideggerian interpretation of ”truth” in Plato, cf. Wolz, H.G., “Plato's doctrine of Truth: Orthòtes or Alètheia?”, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. XXVII, 2, 1966, pp. 157–182CrossRefGoogle Scholar. If for Heidegger the idea is the concept and the truth is under the yoke of the idea, for Wolz, even if the idea is the concept, it is in the “service” of the truth (alètheia) (cf. p. 166), and thus, for Wolz contrary to Heidegger, in Plato “we are led to the concrete situation” (p. 168). For Wolz, the “allegory” of the Cave is nothing but “a small and relatively unimportant portion of a single dialogue” (p. 160). Cf. also Kates, C.A., “Heidegger and the Myth of the Cave”, Personalist 50, 1969, pp. 532–548Google Scholar, who sees in Heidegger's interpretation a “traditional reading” (p. 532). For Kates, the myth of Cave is not an “epistemological allegory” (p. 537), but a myth (cf. p. 542). The myth is of unhiddeness (i.e. alêtheia) (pp. 545–546). But see Kates' conclusion (p. 547) about Being as “perceptual and imaginative”. See furthermore the critique of Heidegger's interpretation by Friedländer, P., Plato. An Introduction, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1964, ch. XIGoogle Scholar. Although there are some problems in regards to Freidländer's notion of “intuitive knowledge” in Plato, the author arrives at some interesting conclusions. Elsewhere I study Plato's metaphysics in the Myth of the Cave.

² See St. Thomas Aquinas and Descartes: quidditas, essentia, as opposed to existentia; cf. Aristotle's examination of the notions of idea and eidos. For Plato, however, idea and eidos are not identical nor interchangeable terms: eidos means ”form”, whereas idea means “formlessness” (cf. Parmenides). It seems eidos (eidon, eidêsis — more of the past and indicative form) signifies that which is already seen (formed, shaped); idea (ikanikos, idanos, idein — more of the future and infinitive form, and perhaps close to idioomai, idiôsis, idios) signifies rather that which is yet to be seen (formless, undelimited). In Plato, the two terms seem to be clearly distinguished. Being conscious (oida) of the unknowable (idea), man arrives at its form (eidos) which is the form of formlessness. The concept (ennoia) and the definition (hosrismos) are reached in the logical conclusions of the dianoia, without ever exhausting the richness of the idea which is the ousia and the alêstheia.