VI-VII From The Republic By Socrates

Socrates uses multiple analogies such as caves, the sun, a ship, etc., in order to illustrate the many ideas of knowledge. He believes that people have various perceptions of knowledge; however, not all of them are capable of finding truth, which, according to Socrates, is what intelligence is ultimately used for. In books VI-VII from The Republic, Socrates showcases his viewpoint on such topics by the use of a “divided line” and a cave. Through the use of the divided line and cave analogies, Socrates deepens the readers’ understanding of the stages of comprehension done by the mind: illusion, belief, reasoning, and intelligence respectively. The first of the two main images discussed in the book was the divided line. Socrates first describes the line as four subsections in unequal lengths. The first …show more content…
It deals with “shadows, then appearances produced in water and in all close-grained, smooth, bright things, and everything of the sort.” (VI. 509d) Thus shades and reflections correspond to illusion in the sense that it presents an outlined image or appearance to the human, but it does not reveal anything else. The second section is centered around physical objects. It is about “the likeness – the animals around us, and everything that grows, and the whole class of artifacts.” (VI. 510a) Physical objects relate to belief because it shows the details of the image: the object itself, the color scheme, etc. It builds the credibility of the object getting comprehended. The third section is about mathematics. It is about “using as images the thing previously imitated… is compelled to investigate on the basis of hypotheses and makes its way not to a