Key Arguments

• There are ‘two ruling powers,’ each set over one domain: visible and intellectual.
• The visible realm is to be compared in subdivisions by ‘clearness and want of clearness,’ tracking object and cognitive state.
• The copy stands to original as opinion stands to knowledge, grounding an epistemic hierarchy linked to ontology.

Source Quotes

I hope not, he said. You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz').

I have. Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand?

Very good. Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? Most undoubtedly.

Key Concepts

• there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible
• take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion
• compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness
• the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge

Context

Transition from the Sun analogy to the Divided Line framework establishing two domains and proportional clarity (lines 9950-9963).

Perspectives

Plato

Approves a structural mapping of ontology to epistemology: degrees of being yield proportional degrees of knowability.

Socrates

Prepares the graded cognitive map to guide education and to distinguish mere opinion from genuine knowledge.