The opinable and unreasoning sense perception (Timaeus 27-8)

The Timaeus says a lot of interesting things about knowledge and belief. Most of the discussion of both states comes in the form of contrasting knowledge with belief, such that we can learn a lot about the one by seeing what the other, contrasting state, is like. (Indeed, one of my favorite bits of Plato with regard to the Forms, Tim. 51-52, comes in the context of such a comparison.)

As I was rereading the Timaeus this morning, one of these passages comparing knowledge and opinion struck me as particularly interesting. This comes near the beginning of the Timaeus, just as Timaeus is beginning his speech:

As I see it, then, we must begin by making the following distinction: What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which becomes but never is? The former is grasped by understanding, which involves a reasoned account. It is unchanging. The latter is grasped by opinion, which involves unreasoning sense perception. It comes to be and passes away, but never really is. (27e-28a)

What struck me about this passage initially, though, was it’s similarity with the knowledge and belief passage in Republic 5 (477-480) in which knowledge and belief are different powers – knowledge to know things that are (the beautiful itself, for example) and opinion to opine about things that both are and are not (sensible particulars). In both of these cases we have knowledge and belief/opinion contrasted with one another and a central way in which they are contrasted from one another in these passages is by explaining that they are set over different objects. The objects of knowledge are those things which always are; the objects of belief are those things that are coming to be.*

In the Timaeus, though, we get something else – namely, we appear to get a reason why the respective objects are set over the respective powers. We have something that looks like this:
things that are –> grasped by understanding –> involves a reasoned account
things that become –> grasped by opinion –> involves unreasoning sense perception

One comes to form an opinion about something through the involvement of sense perception. Those things accessible to sense perception are things that come to be and pass away, but never really are. It looks, then, like we have a reason why sensible particulars are the things that are (and are only) opinable. We can only access things that become by involving our sense perception. Our only access to cats and coffees and colors and smells is through our perception of them. This is even more pronounced when we think of particular instances – this cat, this cup of coffee, this slight bitterness from the coffee. We must rely on our sense perception to become aware of these things. But, because our sense perception is unreasoning, it cannot form a reasoned account (which is necessary for understanding) and we are thereby stuck with opinions about these perceptible objects. (Alas.)

What I wonder about, though, is how this takes into account the epistemic progress that one must make in coming to have knowledge of the Forms. (Coincidentally (or not), this is the same problem with the Republic 5 passage.) How do we come to have knowledge (understanding) of the Forms? From the schema provided to us in Timaeus 27-8, it looks like we have to develop a reasoned account. How do we do this? Through engaging in a process of education which culminates in dialectic. Recall how Plato says we start this process of education. In Republic 7, he uses the summoners/finger argument to show that we begin to think about things by themselves (or, at least, this is a very good way to start little ones on their way to knowledge of the Forms) by perceiving that certain things (fingers) exhibit contrary properties (largeness, smallness) at the same time. This forces us to stop relying on perception to figure out what largeness and smallness are (since clearly perception is inadequate) and turn to our reason for an account of largeness and smallness. This doesn’t mean, though, that we should totally shun perception altogether, though, because perception is still needed for us to see that the finger is both large and small. (In the Phaedo (74-5), too, he says that we observe that sticks are perfectly equal and this causes us to recollect equality.) Similarly for Beauty. Perception isn’t sufficient to tell us what beauty is because it presents the same thing as both beautiful and ugly depending upon its context. But it seems quite reasonable that the way one begins to think about beauty is first by noting that all sorts of things are beautiful and then trying to understand what unifies them (see the Symposium for more on this).

The point I’m trying to make here is that while perception may not get you an account, it looks rather important in starting to develop one. Of course, somewhere along the line you’re going to have to ‘turn your mind’s eye around’ (ala Rep. 518) and stop relying on perception. This looks to come somewhat late in the game, though. Again in the Republic, one relies on imagery and images for a good long while. Geometers still use triangles when thinking of triangularity; Socrates recommends using the stars in the sky as tools to think of the true motions of things; indeed, Socrates uses imagery throughout his own descriptions as a way to make clearer quite difficult concepts (see: Form of the Good). In fact, dialectic looks to be the stage in education in which one stops using images and relies on words and accounts altogether. And this is the last stage of one’s education.

While the Timaeus presents such a stark dichotomy between understanding/Forms and belief/sensibles, explaining this dichotomy through the further claims regarding accounts and unreasoning sense perception, it looks like there must be some middle stage by which both our reason and our sense perception are involved. We perceive the beautiful painting, and the beautiful human, and the beautiful sonata and we then use our reasoning to notice what is similar about them. Doing this, we are beginning to develop an account of beauty, but we are doing so with an eye still on the perceptible world. It is only when we’ve progressed quite a ways in our education that we are able to stop looking at the sensible world and rely only on our reason to develop an appropriate account, adequate for understanding.

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* OK, OK, OK…so the Republic passage doesn’t emphasize the coming to be and passing away bit as much as the commingling of opposite properties bit. But looking at other places in the dialogues (including other bits of the Republic) I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that the things that are coming to be and passing away are also the things that suffer from a commingling of opposite properties.