[477a]
that
which is not be known?” “We are sufficiently assured of
this, then, even if we should examine it from every point of view, that that
which entirely1‘is’ is entirely knowable,
and that which in no way 'is' is in every way unknowable.”
“Most sufficiently.” “Good. If a thing, then,
is so conditioned as both to be and not to be, would it not lie between that
which absolutely and unqualifiedly is and that which in no way
is?” “Between.” “Then if knowledge
pertains to that which is and ignorance of necessity to that which is not,
[477b]
for that which lies between we must
seek for something between nescience and science, if such a thing there
be.” “By all means.” “Is there a
thing which we call opinion?” “Surely.”
“Is it a different faculty from science or the same?”
“A different.” “Then opinion is set over one
thing and science over another, each by virtue of its own distinctive power
or faculty.” “That is so.” “May we
say, then, that science is naturally related to that which is,2 to know that and how that which is is?
But rather, before we proceed, I think we must draw the following
distinctions.” “What ones?”
[477c]
“Shall
we say that faculties,3 powers, abilities are a class of entities
by virtue of which we and all other things are able to do what we or they
are able to do? I mean that sight and hearing, for example, are faculties,
if so be that you understand the class or type that I am trying to
describe.” “I understand,” he said.
“Hear, then, my notion about them. In a faculty I cannot see any
color or shape or similar mark such as those on which in many other cases I
fix my eyes in discriminating in my thought one thing
[477d]
from another. But in the case of a faculty I look to one
thing only—that to which it is related and what it effects,4 and it is in this way
that I come to call5 each one of them a faculty, and
that which is related to6 the same thing and accomplishes the same
thing I call the same faculty, and that to another I call other. How about
you, what is your practice?” “The same,” he
said. “To return, then, my friend,” said I,
“to science or true knowledge, do you say that it is a faculty and
a power,
[477e]
or in what class do you put
it?” “Into this,” he said, “the most
potent of all7 faculties.” “And opinion—shall
we assign it to some other class than faculty.” “By no
means,” he said, “for that by which we are able to opine
is nothing else than the faculty of opinion.8” “But not long ago you
agreed that science and opinion are not identical.” “How
could any rational man affirm the identity of the infallible with the
fallible?” “Excellent,” said I, “and
we are plainly agreed
1 παντελῶς: cf.μηδαμῇ and 478 Dπάντως. Not foreseeing modern philology Plato did not think it necessary to repeat these qualifying adverbs in 478 Bἢ ἀδύνατον καὶ δοξάσαι τὸ μὴ ὄν, which is still sometimes quoted to prove that Plato was “yet” naively unaware of the distinction between is-not-at-all (does not exist) and is-not-this-or-that.
2 Apart from the metaphysical question of the relativity of all knowledge, the word ἐπιστήμη in Greek usage connotes certainty, and so Plato and Aristotle always take it. But more specifically that which (always) is, for Plato, is the “idea” which is not subject to change and therefore always is what it is, while a particular material thing subject to change and relativity both is and is not any and every predicate that can be applied to it. And since knowledge in the highest sense is for Plato knowledge of abstract and general ideas, both in his and in our sense of the word idea, knowledge is said to be of that which is. It is uncritical to ignore Plato's terminology and purpose and to talk condescendingly of his confusing subjective with objective certainty in what follows.
3 The history of the word δύναμις has been studied in recent monographs and its various meanings, from potentiality to active power, discriminated. Cf. J. Souilhé, Etude sur le terme δύναμις dans les Dialogues de Platon, Paris, 1919, pp. 96, 163 ff. But Plato makes his simple meaning here quite plain, and it would be irrelevant to bring in modern denunciations of the “old faculty psychology.”
4 Cf. my note on Simplic.De An. 146. 21, Class. Phil. xvii. p. 143.
5 Cf. Ion 537 Dοὕτω καλῶ τὴν μὲν ἄλλην, τὴν δὲ ἄλλην τέχνην.
6 ἐπί: Cf. Parmenides 147 D-Eἕκαστον τῶν ὀνομάτων οὐκ ἐπί τινι καλεῖς;
7 Cf. Protagoras 352 B, Aristotle Eth. 1145 b 24.
8 For the various meanings of δόξα Cf. Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 47 “ the word δόξα may be used in this neutral, psychological sense; it may be taken unfavorably to denote mere opinion as opposed to knowledge, or favorably when true opinions and beliefs are set in antithesis to the appetites and instincts.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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