Paper

The Intelligible

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Ontological / objects

The Visible

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Metaphysical / The Realm of…

Epistemological / Epistemic Privilege

Psychological / Faculty

The realm of the Forms is the ‘actual’ place in which the Forms exist. This realm should not be conflated with the Forms themselves. In the Allegory of the cave this would be the realm from which the Sun’s light would shine.

The realm of intellectual images, abstractions and pure concepts of the imagination. Where the light (of understanding) from the Fire casts its light to illuminate particulars.

Forms - The Good (The Sun) - Human-ness - Beauty-ness

Noesis: Understanding - Here a person is partaking in the contemplation of a Form such as contemplating the essence of beauty, but not an abstraction of an instance of something beautiful.

True Knowledge First principles Pure Abstract Reasoning

Mathematics - The Mathematical maxims defining a Triangle - Triangleness

Dianoia: Thought - Deductive thinking

- Hypotheses to conclusion. - Scientific Methodology

Thinking abstractly about an instance of something partaking in a Form. The understanding (abstraction) of a triangle.

The realm of shadows and reflections. The wall of Plato’s Cave, where the shadows are cast

A reproductions of the physical world.

- A picture of a Triangle - A picture of something beautiful.

Shadows on the cave wall.

Eikasia: Imagination - The artist painting or the poet writing.

- The combining of the memories of a man and a horse to imagine a Minotaur.

- Least amount of reality

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- A physical Triangle. - A number of things – the application of the numerical onto physical objects. - The Utility of Scientific Laws

Pistis: Belief

- Having belief about things in the physical world. - The utility of the physical world.

Opinion Fallibility of Opinion - True opinion - Wrong opinion

The Realm of Non-Being Ignorance

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Plato’s Divided Line

The Realm of physical things

Behind the inhabitants of Plato’s Cave – where the actual physical objects are being carried.

Intellectual Images – Numbers - Pure abstract images –

Scientific Laws (abstract)

Animals, plants, artifacts. A physical instance of a beautiful thing.

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