In are concerned with the nature of sophistry and error. both we merely allude to our doctrine in regard to the first activity of the knowing mind in order to elucidate the point we have before us. There is no reason in either for giving us a comprehensive account of this activity for its own sake. Here we are In the Theaetetus it is quite otherwise. primarily concerned with the lower stages only. I take it that the primary purpose of the Theaetetus is by an examination of these lower stages to show that they cannot give us knowledge. We are allowed to infer that we can only find knowledge when we come to the edn, as any intelligent disciple of Plato would be sure to do. It is ludicrous to say that in the Theaetetus Plato gives up the doctrine of the eïdŋ. That theory is implied all through. Yet just because we are not concerned with it primarily, but with the lower stages, we naturally get a fuller account of these stages than we get elsewhere. In the first place then, what is the broad general character of this first stage of cognitive experience? It is called aloOnois, but this is neither the sensation nor the perception of the psychologist. It is rather, as we have said, the first ingenuous and intuitive vision of the soul whether in sense, memory or imagination as that is before thinking begins. We have here the bare or immediate object, presentation or appearance. And secondly, what is Plato's doctrine about it? He appears rather to accept than to reject the sophistical account of it. About it he seems to urge three main points: (1) that we have other objects not got at in this way; (2) that if we consider it in this way apart from thinking it becomes simply what we should call a stream of separate unrelated images-i.e., what may naturally be described as the eixóves which are objects of eikaoía; and (3) that if in this the mind is merely passive the stream of images becomes simply the flux of Heraclitus in which we can find no foothold and in which it is impossible to have any object before us at all. It is true, indeed, that he does not use the word eixaría or Eikov. If we may hazard a conjecture this might be because here he is not concerned to show that the appearance is in any sense like the natural object, as the natural object is like the eidos-his great contention in the Republic. But he does identify αἴσθησις with φαντασία* which is surely near enough for our purposes-and he speaks of the objects either as pavтáo μaтat -a word which he uses alongside of eixáv in the Republic and of εἴδωλον in the Sophistor in one place as φάσματα þáoμaтa èv ýμîv—a word which is, of course, used of the phantoms which appear in dreams. He also uses the word Tálos§ to indicate at least the comparative passivity of the soul. Note particularly that ato@nois is not sense or sensation though it includes it. Its object is simply ró paivóμevov, that which appears, and is what it appears, whether in dreams or madness, whether in sense, memory, or imagination. It is what is called “an idea" in the works of modern logicians, as in the phrase "The Association of Ideas." It is now that we begin to see its metaphysical importance and to realize that it was not without good reason that Plato introduced it into the Republic. It is often suggested by commentators that eixaoía indicates no special and separate way of knowing, but there have been many philosophers who have held that it is the only way of knowing, and that nothing more is possible. It is what Hume, who understands it far better than its average supporters, calls the stream of impressions and ideas. By the agnostics of all ages from Protagoras to Hume it has been identified with the whole of knowledge, and its objects have been identified with the whole of reality. The world of appearances is everything, everything is what it seems and seems what it is. It is reality for me. There is no possibility of contradiction or of error. There is no such thing as Truth and no such thing as Philosophy. Memory, sense, imagination, * 152 c. + 167 b. 155 a. § 166 b. and all that we call Thinking or Knowledge are on one dead level, and that is the level which is described by Plato under the heading of εἰκασία. So far we have simply been trying to determine what Plato as a matter of fact classed under εἰκασία. We must now endeavour to understand why he did so, and this should enable us to grasp his position more clearly. We hope it will also enable us to justify it. It will probably be generally agreed both that it is natural to class hallucinations, dreams, and perhaps even imagination under eixaoía, and to consider these as offering us a special class of objects. Any doubts that are entertained about the reasonableness of Plato's position will most probably be felt (1) in regard to sense and its objects and (2) in regard to the activity and products of the artist. But before going on to examine these two questions in detail it is necessary to state, more or less dogmatically, what are the objects and the activity of Tíσtis, in order that we may have a clearer understanding of the difference between Tioris and εἰκασία. The objects of TíσTIs as indicated by both the Republic and the Sophist are the things made by God, animals, plants, and so on, and the things made by man, namely, manufactured articles, houses and chairs and what not. These are distinguished from the images made by God, shadows and reflexions and dreams, and from the images made by man, as, for instance, in painting. In other words, what we have here are real things, the things of our ordinary world. We prefer to call this the actual world, rather than the real world, for the word real strictly speaking, belongs only to the edn. The activity of TiσTis is best called Judgment. "The soul," Plato says in the Theaetetus,* "when thinking appears to me to be just talking, asking questions of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. When she has arrived at a decision, * 190 a. either gradually or by sudden impulse, and has at last agreed and does not doubt, that is her opinion or dóğa,” and we may add her belief or πίστις. Τοῦτο γάρ μοι ἰνδάλλεται διανοουμένη οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ διαλέγεσθαι, αὐτὴ ἑαυτὴν ἐρωτῶσα καὶ ἀποκρινομένη, καὶ φάσκουσα καὶ οὐ φάσκουσα. ὅταν δὲ ὁρίσασα, εἴτε βραδύτερον εἴτε καὶ ὀξύτερον ἐπάξασα, τὸ αὐτὸ ἤδη φῇ καὶ μὴ διστάζῃ, δόξαν ταύτην τίθεμεν αὐτῆς. From the Sophist we get the clear statement, fully borne out by the general argument both of the Sophist and the Theaetetus, that the characteristics of Judgment are: (1) that it affirms or denies ;* and (2) that it is true or false.† Further there is present in it two elements-an element of αἴσθησις taken as identical with εἰκασία and an element of pure thinking. This element of thinking may apparently be either the inferior thinking of mathematical Stávola or the superior thinking of philosophy. It is this element which leads us on from πίστις to pure thought about τὰ ὄντα, and it is the combination of the element of ato@nois and that of thinking which renders error possible. False opinion lies neither in the intuitions in relation to one another nor in the thoughts, but ἐν τῇ συνάψει αἰσθήσεως πρὸς διάνοιαν, in the combination of intuition and thinking.§ This is fully borne out by the Sophist. The activity then is Judgment. It is Affirmative or Negative, True or False. It involves an element of aïolŋois and an element of thought. This element of thought grasps among other things ovcía|| or being or reality, and this implies that it affirms or denies the existence of its object. Every judgment is an existential judgment. By thinking alone we are able to distinguish between the real and the unreal, between being and not-being-a distinction which does not exist for eixaría. And we now understand how the objects of * 263 e. ‡ Th. 194 b. || Th 186 e. judgment are the ordinary things of the actual existent or so-called real world. That is to say like eixaoía Tíoris has under it many objects—and we must not narrow it down to the instances given by Plato in a special connexion in the Republic. It comprises all assertions which claim to be true as opposed to false, and all ytyvóμeva which are actual and objective as opposed to unreal and subjective. It comprises in a word all that is not alo@nois on the one hand or pure mathematics and philosophy on the other. It is a posteriori or empirical knowledge, γνῶσις κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν.* It includes all empirical science and all history as well as the ordinary judgments of the ordinary man, τὰ τῶν πολλῶν πολλὰ νόμιμα καλοῦ τε πέρι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων. Having now indicated the nature of Trioris we may return with more insight to our two main problems in regard to eikaσía: (1) the question of sense; and (2) the question of art. The question of sense and its objects is exceedingly difficult, and we may be unable to thread our way successfully through all its mazes, but we note in the first place that this view is not so strange to the view of the Republic as might at first sight appear. In the tenth book Plato practically identifies the sensible appearance with the eikv of the artist or the mirror. The artist is indeed said to imitate the bed made by the craftsmen, but that actual bed is one and yet it appears different from different points of view. There is a difference between what it is and what it appears,† οἷα ἔστιν and οἷα φαίνεται. Note incidentally how this bears out the complete parallelism of the line. As is the eidos of bed to the many actual beds in which it is manifested, so is each actual bed to the many appearances of it in sense. But note especially that these appearances of the bed to sense are called φαντάσματα οι εἴδωλα. It is these appearances to * Th. 193 e. + 598 a. +598 b. I |