I just spent the last hour trying to disect this. I'm going to take a shot at it, but I can't promise anything that makes sense. =)

Plato breaks the world up into four different perspectives or ways of understanding:

"assume these four affections occurring in the soul: intellection or reason for the highest, 511e understanding for the second; assign belief17 to the third, and to the last picture-thinking or conjecture."

To reach this conclusion he begins by breaking the world up into two parts:

"there are these two entities, and that one of them is sovereign over the intelligible order and region and the other over the world of the eye-ball, not to say the sky-ball, but let that pass. You surely apprehend the two types, the visible and the intelligible.”

Imagine you have a piece of paper. This piece of paper is your world. Draw a line down the page, breaking your world into two unequal sections. The size of the section is an "expression of the ratio of their comparative clearness and obscurity."

The smaller section is the visible:

"images I mean, 510a first, shadows, and then reflections in water and on surfaces of dense, smooth and bright texture, and everything of that kind.”

And the larger is the intelligible:

“As the second section assume that of which this is a likeness or an image, that is, the animals about us and all plants and the whole class of objects made by man.”

Now, do it again (divide these two sections into two more unequal sections):

*The visible is broken up into belief (the larger) and "picture-thinking" (the smaller).

*The intelligible is broken up into reason (the larger) and understanding (the smaller).

Hokay. SO. What does all this mean? That is a good question...

Prepare to not to know what I am talking about, because I definitely don't.

:):):)

Near the end the teacher and the student discuss the reasons for "rating" the different mediums. They say that reason is the highest, because when it is used, one must come to a conclusion through a process devoid of assumptions. Everything must begins a new and everything must be proven; giving one the answer closest to the truth.

"...to enable it to rise to that which requires no assumption and is the starting-point of all,9 and after attaining to that again taking hold of the first dependencies from it, so to proceed downward to the conclusion, 511c making no use whatever of any object of sense10 but only of pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas."

In Plato's words understanding is "something intermediate between opinion and reason."

And the other two perspectives, the "visible" and "picture-thinking" do not even measure up to the reliability of reason and/or understanding (to reach a conclusion), because both are based on the senses, opposed to the mind.

Plato breaks the world up into these four different forms of interpretation to measure the truthfulness of each. He is commenting on the path that must be traveled, in order for one to view the world with certainty. He comes to the conclusion that the path to certainty in perception is uncertainty. The ability to doubt others interpretations and find out for one's self whether these conclusions are precise, before basing one's own conclusions on them.

Through this he alludes to the idea of individual thinking; emphasizing the importance of skepticism. Whether it is a matter of religion or politics or maybe just whether or not to try an exotic type of food: This idea comes into play. For if you are told by some one that the exotic food is disgusting and decline trying it, you have settled for the world of understanding and fallen short of Plato's ideal: Reason. How will you know if you like the food by a second hand account? To drag this analogy out, Plato wants us to try the exotic food for ourselves and only once we have tasted it with our own taste buds, can we reach a trustworthy conclusion.

Posted at Feb 07/2007 08:48PM:
Edda: Interesting...Keep us updated!

Posted at Feb 24/2007 02:13PM:
Shoshana: maev, i couldn't agree more with your breakdown of it.