Monday 10 October 2011

Knowledge and Opinion

This diagram may be used to help understand Plato's divison of knowledge and opinion put forward through the simile of the divided line. Plato argues that the world can be divided into the sensible realm, i.e. that which we perceive through our senses, and the intelligible realm, i.e. that which we discover through the powers of our intellect.  Our epsistemic states are related to these realms such that opinion is said to relate to the sensible realm and knowledge to the intelligible. In the simile of the divided line we may imagine these epistemic states existing on a line where knowledge is one half and opinion the other. The division, as can be seen in the diagram goes further whereby opinion is divided into belief and illusion and knowledge is divided into intelligence and mathematical reasoning.

We may now consider the epistemic state of opinion. Opinion is the lower epistemic state in that it lacks the certainty of knowledge and relates to the inferior, illusory world of the senses. Illusion, a further sub division of opinion, is by Plato's reckoning the lowest form of epistemic state with our thoughts in this area being subject to regular change and a particular lack of clarity. In this Plato not only refers to the illusory ideas we gather through our basic sense perception but also to the uninformed views we may gather through mere blind acceptance. Examples would include the acceptance of dogma or ideas from media etc without question. The other division of opinion is belief. This is a higher epistemic state and includes our moral reasonings and the natural sciences. While these are considered more highly than illusion because they involve clear and direct study of the world they are still lower than knowledge because Plato claims they take the illusory sensory world to represent the true nature of reality.

On the other hand, ideas that fall under the epistemic state of knowledge do not consider our sensory world to be the true reality and do not gather their meaning through examination of it. Rather the knowledge is gained through the exercise of the intellect and as such Plato claims knowledge pertains to the abstract world of the forms. This world is more real than the physical world and contains notions in their most perfect form, thus allowing for the aquisition of knowledge about this realm. The first division, dianoia, relates to our reasoning and the noesis is translated to mean intelligence or full understanding. Dianoia includes such things as mathematical and logical derivations and while this is knowledge Plato considers it to be a lower form of knowledge than noesis due to its reliance on axiomatic structures i.e. the theories are based on basic assumptions that are taken to be self evident. Noesis on the other hand seeks direct knowledge of the forms from first principles, thus doing away with the need for axioms and attaining a purer form of knowledge.

1 comment:

  1. Spot on Richard, well done.

    One thing missing though, have a look over it and see if you can work it out!

    Mr Fern

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