Abstract

In this paper, I will attempt to interpret Plato's concept of knowledge as he presents it in the very end of Book V of the Republic. An adequate interpretation of Plato's concept of knowledge must be able to account coherently for the following, According to Plato, knowledge is not a state of mind, but an ability or power of the mind and is therefore, formally analogous to sight. This analogy is presented explicitly and in great detail in the famous ‘similes of light,’ the Sun, Divided Line, and Cave passages of Books VI and VII. Cognition, for Plato, comes in degrees from clearer to less clear. Finally, knowledge is related in a special way to being.