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The great Greek philosopher Plato presented the simile of the divided line in the end of version VI of his book Republic. In the book Republic, version VI and VII Socrates repeatedly rejected that he recognized the form of the good nevertheless the fact that he labeled it as the most significant thing to try to recognize because this is where everything that is moral becomes its value and returns from. The good is to be identified with pleasure not with the knowledge. These rejections did not dishearten Glaucon from unrelenting Socrates for his own views about the good. Socrates straightaway recapped Glaucon of the dissimilarity between the many beautiful and many good things on the one hand and the beautiful itself as well as the good itself on the other hand. To see things light is needed which is get from the Sun while Sun is not sight itself and it is accountable for vision, so Sun is similar to the Good. It is a fact that the Good views in the intelligible realm to the intelligence and the substances known to us in the visible realm to the sun stands to vision and the things humans see. Socrates has suggested that the Sun is responsible for the visibility of the objects and it is the reason which gives power to the eyes to see. (Jowett) Plato explained the visible world as the apparent physical substances as well as their pictures which we make in our minds and in our paintings. He explained that the Sun delivers the visibility of the substances on Earth as well as it also produces them and it is also foundation of their growth and development. He also pointed out that because of these reasons many of the religions identifies the Sun as God for them. Plato explained that beyond the visible world, there is another world known as intelligible world. He described that the intelligible world is illuminated with Good like the visible world is illuminated with the Sun. The world can be divided in to the realm of the sensible which means, detectable by our senses and the realm of the intelligible which is the discovering using the intelligence. So it is evident that this world can be divided in to two and aligned with what is real and what is not real. Thus according to Plato, it can be stated that both of the two worlds are lying on the line and Plato named this as the Simile of Divided line and Plato has further divided both of these line and made a total of 4 divisions overall.
Plato has divided the line between the visible and intelligible, which is further divided in to the material and the ideal; they key foundations of the most of the dualisms. Plato might have created the word idea from a Greek word which means to have seen. The Plato’s line is also the division between the body and mind. Plato has described the upper half of the divided line as intelligible which is opposite to the visible. He has divided the opinion in to belief or faith and an illusion or imagination. He described the illusion as the lowest form of an epistemic state and is characterized in the discussion by shadows and the reflections of the Plato’s book. These substances and our thoughts about them are very variable and uncertain but Plato has meant more than just shadow and reflections.
Plato has meant the categories of second-hand costumed opinions that people hold not finding out themselves but just trusting what they are communicated for instance in the newspapers; and his last book the republic, he inferred that art and poetry comes under the category of illusion as well. He described that matters such as morality comes under the category of the belief whereas commonsense views falls in the category of the physical world. Plato stated the natural sciences under the belief because the natural sciences deal with the changeable physical world. According to Plato, knowledge also has two divisions, reasoning and intelligence or full understanding. He stated that the reasoning relies on assumptions as well as imaginations but intelligence does not rely on any of them assumptions or imaginations. He gave the example of reasoning as geometry, while studying triangles for instance, in demonstrating the three internal angles add up to 180 degrees, the students do not study the actual, imperfect triangles they draw, and instead they create proofs using an idea of the triangle. The students just make use of argue about the visible figures but they do not really think about the original angles which they think about and draw. Plato stated that the intelligence work in the unproven knowledge and hypothesis such as different types of angles such as acute, obtuse and right angles and images from realm are used to sense it and help in the investigation.
In his book VI of Republic, published in 508-BC, Plato had made an analogy between the character of the Sun; whose light enables humans to see everything and with it all the visible substances are visible to humans whereas the role of the Good which rules over the hypothetical information and the real objects of humans knowledge.
Plato has explained the two classes of substances in his book VI of Republic, those that can be seen but not imagined and those which can only be imagined but can never be seen. Plato has stated a line for this purpose, shown below: Visible Realm Intellectual Realm
Images Visible Things Mathematical Objects Forms ---------------|------------------------|-------------------------|-------------------------------------- A B C D E
In the above line, AB portion is showing the visible world to the vision whereas the portion BC shows the objects of the vision. The Portion CD shows the intelligible region to the reason and DE shows the objects of the reason.
Plato has described the line as divided in to two portions that not of the same size. Most of the modern versions of the divisions represent the intelligible portion larger than that of the visible portion but there are numerous strong reasons that Plato had made about the intelligible portion to that of the visible portion. There is no evident proof of which portion Plato has made more whether visible or intelligible but according to the pictures of the division that Plato had made it is clear that the intelligible portion is above the visible portion by using a vertical line. (Shorey)
Plato has divided both the visible and intelligible lines in to two more sections. Plato further divided both the unequal sections of intelligible and visible in to two sections in the same ratio. He divided the intelligible in to the intellection for the highest portion i.e. DE, understanding the second portion CD, belief as third portion BC, and at the end he stated the conjecture as AB after arranging them in to the proper proportion, considering the fact that they participate in the clearness and precision in the same degree as their objects partake of truth and reality.
By elaborating the dividend line more precisely and accurately the portions A and B denoted the physical world known as appearance. The portion A represented the shadows and reflections of the physical substances whereas portion B represented the physical substances. The portions A and B corresponded to two types of knowledge i.e. illusion of daily life experiences and the belief of discrete physical objects which have their shadows. It can be deduced that in portion A the eye makes decisions on observing the likeness of the visible things whereas in portion B the eye makes probable predictions upon noticing the visible things. The portions C and D represent the intelligible world. The Portion C is responsible for demonstrating the mathematical reasoning and the mathematical objects such as geometric lines and the objects outside the physical world whereas the portion D shows the subjects of the psychological understanding which is achieved by the technique of dialectic which uses hypothesis not as the first principles but only as a hypothesis. (Aquileana)
Plato has differentiated two methods. The first method is of the mathematician or scientist which starts with the expectations or hypothesis and then progress to the deduction and which persist reliant on the hypothesis whereas the second method as the dialectician which progresses the expectations from beginning or first principle that surpasses hypothesis trusting on the ideas only developing systematically with help of ideas. Plato claims that the dialectical method is more complete and proficient of realization a higher form of knowledge, likely connected to his idea that the everlasting soul has seen all these truths in past lives and before.
Works Cited
Aquileana. "Plato´s Republic: The Allegory of the Cave and the Analogy of the Divided Line." 04 03 2014. La Audacia de Aquiles. 17 02 2015.
Jowett, B. "The Dilogues of Plato "English Translation"." Jowett, B. The Dilogues of Plato "English Translation". London: Oxford University Press, n.d.
Shorey, Paul. Plato: The Republic "With English Translation". London: Harward University Press, n.d.