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We pass then to our special discussion of eixaría and the objects of εἰκασία, and of how they differ from πίστις and the objects of πίστις.

Let us first of all sum up what are to be our conclusions.

Eixaoía is the first ingenuous and intuitive vision of the real. Its object is simply what appears, τὸ φαινόμενον. It makes no distinction between the different levels of reality. For it there is no distinction yet made between the real and the unreal, or, if you prefer it, real and unreal do not mean anything to it. It is cognitive and has an object, but it does not affirm or deny: that is, it does not claim to be true. Truth and Falsehood, Reality and Unreality, Fact and Fiction, these are distinctions which have not yet arisen. It is identical with that alo@nois or Intuition of the first part of the Theaetetus which is supposed by the Sophist to be knowledge, but which cannot be in contradiction with any other alooŋois because it does not yet judge, i.e., because it does not yet lay claim to what is called Objective Truth. There is no word for it in English but we may call it Imagination or the cognition of images, or again Intuition or the mere looking at objects.

Its object as we might expect from its derivation is the elkov or image. We must not, however, call it a mental image, in the dangerous language of modern writers on logic and psychology. Nor again may we call it a real image as opposed to a mental image. It is not subjective as opposed to objective nor objective as opposed to subjective. These phrases when they mean anything mean a distinction between the real and the unreal, and in this first stage of consciousness, examined as it must be from within, that distinction has not yet arisen. Still less can we say that it is mistaking the image for the thing, the unreal for the real. That is mere error, it is not eixaoía. For eixaría we repeat again there is no distinction between the real and the unreal, and consequently there is no possibility of mistaking one for the other. There is no claim to truth, and consequently there can be no possibility of error.

We can now proceed to give an indication of its objects in detail, and if these appear to be of no metaphysical importance we hope to show later that this is not so. The images are "firstly shadows, secondly reflexions in water and in things that are close grained and smooth and bright and all similar things" —πρῶτον μὲν τὰς σκίας, ἔπειτα τὰ ἐν τοῖς ὕδασι φαντάσματα καὶ ἐν τοῖς ὅσα πυκνά τε καὶ λεῖα καὶ φανὰ συνέστηκεν καὶ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον.

This is not further developed in the present passage as Plato is concerned with higher themes, but we learn from the tenth book that the artist also holds a mirror up to nature, and he appears to create† animals, plants and manfactured articles (the very things we shall afterwards find belong to TíσTIs) as well as the earth and the sky and the gods and all things in heaven and in the House of Hades beneath the earth, but in reality he offers us a mere φάντασμα or εἰκών of these things.

We find exactly the same view in the Sophist. We have on the one hand the things‡ made by God, not here the eldŋ as in the Republic, but animals, plants and inanimate substances, animals and their elements, fire and water and the like, and on the other hand we have the things§ made by man, houses and other manufactured articles. All this is of course the object of TίOTIS. But we must set against these the images made by God and the images made by man. The description is similar to that in the Republic. "The images§ made by God are the images or appearances (pavтáoμara) which spring up of themselves in sleep or by day, e.g., a shadow when darkness comes in the light of the fire, or in cases where a double light, that external to an object and that belonging to it, comes together about bright and smooth objects, and creates a shape giving us a sensation the reverse of what we ordinarily see." Τά τὲ ἐν τοῖς ὕπνοις καί ὅσα μεθ' ἡμέραν φαντάσματα αὐτοφυῆ λέγεται» σκιά μὲν ὅταν ἐν τῷ πυρὶ σκότος ἐγγίγνηται, διπλοῦν δὲ ἡνίκ ̓ ἂν

* 510 a.

+ 596 c.

265 c.

§ 266 b.

φῶς οἰκεῖόν τε καὶ ἀλλότριον περὶ τὰ λαμπρὰ καὶ λεῖα εἰς ἓν συνελθὸν τῆς ἔμπροσθεν εἰωθυίας ὄψεως ἐναντίαν αἴσθησιν παρέχον εἶδος ἀπεργάζηται. Now whatever be the theory of reflexion in this passage it is clear that the things here spoken of -the images made by God-are the same as those of the Republic, the shadows and reflexions of real things with the addition of the objects which appear to us in dreams. The similarity of this to the doctrine and language of the Republic is in itself sufficiently remarkable. The addition of dreams is not in the least surprising in itself, and it is clearly suggested in the Republic, e.g., 414d, when in the myth of the three natures, gold, silver and bronze, Plato asserts that this early education of the guardians was just a dream below the earth and when he describes the piλoleáμoves* as dreaming. And we may note here incidentally for the complete parallelism of the line that as we in εἰκασία appear to be dreaming about γιγνόμενα, so the mathematician† is said to be dreaming, dreaming about rò ởvονειρώττουσι μὲν περὶ τὸ ὂν, ὕπαρ δὲ ἀδύνατον αὐταῖς ἰδεῖν.

So far we have the images made by God, but we have also the images made by man as in the tenth book of the Republic. Not only do we make real houses, but the artist will paint for us another house,‡" which is a sort of dream created by man for those who are awake”οἷον ὄναρ ἀνθρώπινον ἐγρηγορόσιν ἀπειργασμένην.

It is this fact of the image made by man which makes it possible for us to track down the Sophist to his lair and to show the nature of error. Surely this would not be possible if the doctrine were of no metaphysical importance, and if we shrink from putting art under the first activity of the soul, we must not let this stand in the way of recognizing the truth. On this point also we shall maintain that Plato's doctrine is profoundly true.

We have now got as the objects of eixaoía shadows and

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reflexions, the dreams of the sleeper, and the dreams of the artist.

Let us turn to the Theaetetus to perceive the common character of all this. Here we have a preliminary stage of consciousness set against thinking about the world, set against what is here called Sóğa. This preliminary stage is called aloOnois, sense or intuition. It may be objected that we have no right to identify δόξα with πίστις and αἴσθησις with eixaoía. The use of different words shows that we are dealing with different things. To this we reply that the use of different words shows no such thing. Anyone who is acquainted with the works of Plato is aware that in spite of the precision and consistency of his thinking he is not at all careful about what we may call terminology. Even in this particular part of the Republic with which we are dealing he varies his terminology-but never his argument—as far as we can see for no reason unless possibly for reasons of rhythm. Thus δόξα is first of all distinguished from γνῶσις or ἐπιστήμη using these words indifferently, e.g., 478c, 477e. Later, 510-511, he divides επιστήμη into the subordinate divisions of διάνοια and νόησις. When he comes back to this in 534 νόησις is the word for the whole section with διάνοια and ἐπιστήμη as its subordinate divisions. Still more frequently of course he varies his language according to the particular point with which he is dealing. Thus in the Republic he speaks of the objects of δόξα as τὰ γιγνόμενα in order to mark them off as comparatively unreal from the εἴδη οι τὰ ὄντα. This does not prevent him in the Theaetetus from calling the objects of dóğa τὰ ὄντα, i.e., real in comparison with the objects of αἴσθησις.

For ourselves we can only say with Plato οὐ περὶ ὀνόματος ἀμφισβήτησις. If he chooses to call the same thing by a different name, we shall not refuse to see his meaning.

Now it is clear that in the Theaetetus he is describing two stages in knowledge and two stages which are below the level of διάνοια and ἐπιστήμη. In the Republic and in the Sophist

(though we shall have to return to the Sophist later) he appears to set forth the same doctrine as to the two stages below Stávola in much the same language. What more probable than that-especially if we are right in setting the Theaetetus between the Republic and the Sophist-the two stages described in the three dialogues are the same? If we find that the same doctrine is apparently taught about these two stages the change in the name will not prevent us from accepting it

as one.

The Sóğa of the Theaetetus certainly appears to be the TiOTIS of the Republic and its objects appear to be the same, e.g., he mentions a wagon (i.e., a manufactured article) as such an object. I do not think anyone will find difficulty in identifying these. But aloonois may appear to be wider than eixaoía. We do indeed get certain things classed under it which we might naturally expect to find. Thus we get what is before us in dreams-as we have had already in the Sophist-and also what is before us in diseases* generally and particularly in madness. So far we appear to be still in eixaría. But in addition-and this is our difficulty-we get the whole of alo@nois, the whole ingenuous unthinking vision of reality whether in memory or in imagination, and in addition, all that we ordinarily call pure sense, all aïolnois which does not as yet involve judgment.

What we suggest is this, that this general aïo@nois or intuition is the same as eixaoía, but we now get it described in more detail, and only now is the full extension and meaning of it made clear.

Note that this is exactly what we should expect from the purpose of the different dialogues. Both in the Republic and in the Sophist we are dealing with particular problems. In the Republic we are dealing with the character of philosophy and the training which must precede it. In the Sophist we

* 157 e.

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