The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

60 Degrees of Clarity (the Line)
See 509c-511e. Book VI ends with Socrates ranking four kinds of awareness with
respect to their relative clarity: (1) “understanding” is clearest, (2) “thought” is
next, (3) “belief” is still less clear, and (4) “imagination” least. (1)
“Understanding” is of forms, and is achieved through “dialectic,” the activity of
philosophical inquiry. (2) “Thought” is also of forms, but of forms that are
contemplated indirectly, as when students of geometry use diagrams to help think
about the properties of circles and triangles. (3) “Belief” is of particular things
experienced directly, through sense perception. (4) “Imagination,” or “imaging” in
some translations, is of particular things experienced indirectly, also through sense
perception, but by means of likenesses such as “shadows . . . reflections . . . and
everything of that sort.” That Socrates intends “everything of that sort” to include
the artistic representation of things – especially descriptions in poetry – will
become evident as the dialogue unfolds. (Notice Socrates’ description in Book VII
of the shadows in the cave, and, when you get to it, his criticism of the poets in
Book X.) In order to better appreciate what he is getting at in distinguishing these
four levels of clarity, it may be helpful to consider how they might be used to
describe a person’s growing awareness of justice. As a child, one might acquire a
level (4) awareness of justice through fairy tales. Snow White, for instance, is
driven off into the forest because of her beauty and goodness; then things are set to
rights, and she returns home. One is aware, even at a very early age, that this is a
happy ending, a just resolution of the story’s problem. But appreciation of this
point requires only the vaguest conception of justice. Later, as one matures, one
comes to have firsthand experience of functional and dysfunctional groups, as well
as functional and dysfunctional people. The result is an awareness of justice at
level (3). One is not yet able to define justice, and may not even have words to
describe the distinction one recognizes between justice and injustice, but one can
remember something of the strife and resentment characteristic of injustice, as well
as something of what it feels like to be treated fairly by a person of good will, and
one cares about the difference. (Socrates observes in the dialogue Alcibiades, at
110b-c, that children are sensitive to when other children are playing fairly and