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Knowledge by Acquaintance and ‘Knowing What’ in Plato's Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Nicholas D. Smith
Nicholas D. Smith
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute Virginia
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Extract

In this paper, I will attempt to interpret Plato's concept of knowledge as he presents it in the very end of Book V of the Republic. An adequate interpretation of Plato's concept of knowledge must be able to account coherently for the following, (I) According to Plato, knowledge is not a state of mind, but an ability or power of the mind (δύναμις) and is therefore, formally analogous to sight (477C ff.). This analogy is presented explicitly and in great detail in the famous ‘similes of light,’ the Sun, Divided Line, and Cave passages of Books VI and VII. (2) Cognition, for Plato, comes in degrees from clearer to less clear (478C, 509D, 511 E). (3) Finally, knowledge is related in a special way to being (thus, it is said to be ἐπἱ τᾦὂντι 477A, B, 478A).

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 281 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1979

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References

NOTES

1 Plato apparently uses both terms interchangeably, at least at this point in the Republic.

2 Hintikka, J.-Knowledge and The Known, D. Reidel Pub. Co. (Dordrecht, 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Translation: Shorey, P., Plato's Republic I, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass., 1963).Google Scholar

4 For a detailed treatment of the complexities of translating άλήθεια, see Vlastos, G., ‘Degrees of Reality in Plato,’ New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, Bambrough, R. (ed.), Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (London, 1965).Google Scholar

5 I would like to thank Professors Gregory Vlastos, Julius Moravcsik, and Gisela Striker and the editors of Dialogue for their helpful comments on various drafts of this paper.