Plato on Dialectics, ‘Intuitive’ Thought and ‘Discursive’ Thought

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to provide a deflationary interpretation of the divided line in Republic VI-VII. I argue that an important part of the difficulties existing between διάνοια and νόησις lies in the fact that the different sections of the divided line are read as if they were close compartments. My claim is that one of the crucial problems is how one should understand that a soul working according to the mental capacity that Plato calls νόησις could perform its cognitive activities absolutely getting rid of any sensible ingredient. In order to attempt to explain this detail, I make use of a passage included in the Phaedo, where Plato tries to show that it is possible to get rid of the body ‘as far as possible’. The view that the soul gains ‘clarity’ as long as it ascends from εἰκασία to νόησις, I hold, might be understood in terms of ‘certainty’: as some contemporary epistemologists, Plato appears to have envisaged the idea that if there is knowledge, such knowledge must be certain, and such certainty, I suggest, is not understood as a mere ‘psychological’ but as an ‘epistemic’ certainty. That is, the reasons the Platonic knower possesses are strong enough to believe that what he believes is true.