Chapter XLIII: Appendix: C

OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS ACCORDING TO PLATO.

(_Cam. Phil. Soc._ NOV. 10, 1856.)

In the Seventh Book of Plato's _Republic_, we have certain sciences described as the instruments of a philosophical and intellectual education; and we have a certain other intellectual employment spoken of, namely, Dialectic, as the means of carrying the mind beyond these sciences, and of enabling it to see the sources of those truths which the sciences assume as their first principles. These points have been discussed in the two preceding papers. But this scheme of the highest kind of philosophical education proceeds upon a certain view of the nature and degrees of knowledge, and of the powers by which we know; which view had been presented in a great measure in the Sixth Book; this view I shall now attempt to illustrate.

To analyse the knowing powers of man is a task so difficult, that we need not be surprised if there is much obscurity in this portion of Plato's writings. But as a reason for examining what he has said, we must recollect that if there be in it anything on this subject which was true then, it is true still; and also, that if we know any truth on that subject now, we shall find something corresponding to that truth in the best speculations of sagacious ancient writers, like Plato. It may therefore be worth while to discuss the Platonic doctrines on this matter, and to inquire how they are to be expressed in modern phraseology.

Plato's doctrine will perhaps be most clearly understood, if we begin by considering the _diagram_ by which he illustrates the different degrees of knowledge[341]. He sets out from the distinction of _visible_ and _intelligible_ things. There are visible objects, squares and triangles, for instance; but these are not the squares and triangles about which the Geometer reasons. The exactness of his reasoning does not depend on the exactness of his diagrams. He reasons from certain mental squares and triangles, as he conceives and understands them. "Thus there are visible and there are intelligible things. There is a visible and an intelligible world[342]: and there are two different regions about which our knowledge is concerned. Now take a line divided into two unequal segments to represent these two regions: and again, divide each segment in the same ratio. The parts of each segment are to represent differences of clearness and distinctness, and in the visible world these parts are _things_ and _images_. By _images_ I mean shadows, and reflections in water, and in polished bodies; and by _things_, I mean that of which these images are the resemblances; as animals, plants, things made by man. This difference corresponds to the difference of _Knowledge_ and mere _Opinion_; and the _Opinable_ is to the _Knowable_ as the Image to the Reality."

This analogy is assented to by Glaucon; and thus there is assumed a ground for a further construction of the diagram.

"Now," he says, "we have to divide the segment which represents Intelligible Things in the same way in which we have divided that which represents Visible Things. The one part must represent the knowledge which the mind gets by dealing as it were with images, and by reasoning downwards _from_ Principles; the other that which it has by dealing with the Ideas themselves, and going _to_ First Principles.

"The one part depends upon assumptions or hypotheses[343], the other is unhypothetical or absolute truth.

"One kind of Intelligible Things, then, is Conceptions; for instance, geometrical conceptions of figures, by means of which we reason downwards, assuming certain First Principles.

"Now the other kind of Intelligible Things is this:--that which the Reason includes in virtue of its power of reasoning, when it regards the assumptions of the Sciences as, what they are, assumptions only; and uses them as occasions and starting points, that from these it may ascend to the _absolute_, (ἀνυπόθετον, unhypothetical,) which does not depend upon assumption, but is the origin of scientific truth. The Reason takes hold of this first principle of truth; and availing itself of all the connections and relations of this principle, it proceeds to the conclusion; using no sensible image in doing this, but contemplating the Ideas alone; and with these Ideas the process begins, goes on, and terminates."

This account of the matter will probably seem to require at least further explanation; and that accordingly is acknowledged in the Dialogue itself. Glaucon says:

"I apprehend your meaning in a certain degree, but not very clearly, for the matter is somewhat abstruse. You wish to prove that the knowledge which, by the Reason, we acquire, of Real Existence and Intelligible Things, is of a higher degree of certainty than the knowledge which belongs to what are commonly called Sciences. Such sciences, you say, have certain assumptions for their bases; and these assumptions are, by the students of such sciences, apprehended, not by Sense (that is, the Bodily Senses), but by a Mental Operation,--by Conception. But inasmuch as such students ascend no higher than the assumptions, and do not go to the First Principles of Truth, they do not seem to you to have true knowledge--intuitive insight--_Nous_--on the subject of their reasonings, though the subjects are intelligible, along with their principle. And you call this habit and practice of the Geometers and others by the name _Conception_, not _Intuition_[344]; taking Conception to be something between Opinion on the one side, and Intuitive Insight on the other."

"You have explained it well, said I. And now consider the four sections (of the line) of which we have spoken, as corresponding to four affections in the mind. Intuition, the highest; Conception, the next; the third, Belief; and the fourth, Conjecture (from likenesses); and arrange them in order, so that they may have more or less of certainty, as their objects have more or less of truth[345].

"I understand, said he. I agree to what you say, and I arrange them as you direct."

And so the Sixth Book ends: and the Seventh Book opens with the celebrated image of the Cave, in which men are confined, and see all external objects only by the shadows which they cast on the walls of their prison. And this imperfect knowledge of things is to the true vision of them, which is attained by those who ascend to the light of day, as the ordinary knowledge of men is to the knowledge attainable by those whose minds are purged and illuminated by a true philosophy.

Confining ourselves at present to the part of Plato's speculations which we have mentioned, namely, the degrees of knowledge, and the division of our knowing faculties, we may understand, and may in a great degree accept, Plato's scheme. We have already (in the preceding papers) seen that, by the knowledge of real things, he means, in the first place, the knowledge of universal and necessary truths, such as Geometry and the other exact sciences deal with. These _we_ call sciences of Demonstration; and we are in the habit of contrasting the knowledge which constitutes such sciences with the knowledge obtained by the Senses, by Experience or mere Observation. This distinction of Demonstrative and Empirical knowledge is a cardinal point in Plato's scheme also; the former alone being allowed to deserve the name of _Knowledge_, and the latter being only _Opinion_. The Objects with which Demonstration deals may be termed _Conceptions_, and the objects with which Observation or Sense has to do, however much speculation may reduce them to mere Sensations, are commonly described as _Things_. Of these Things, there may be Shadows or Images, as Plato says; and as we may obtain a certain kind of knowledge, namely Opinion or Belief, by seeing the Things themselves, we may obtain an inferior kind of Opinion or Belief by seeing their Images, which kind of opinion we may for the moment call _Conjecture_. Whether then we regard the distinctions of knowledge itself or of the objects of it, we have three terms before us.

If we consider the kinds of knowledge, they are
Demonstration: Belief: Conjecture.
If the objects of this knowledge, they are
Conceptions: Things: Images.

But in each of these Series, the first term is evidently wanting: for Demonstration supposes Principles to reason from. Conceptions suppose some basis in the mind which gives them their evidence. What then is the first term in each of these two Series?

The Principles of Demonstration must be seen by _Intuition_.

Conceptions derive their properties from certain powers or attributes of the mind which we may term _Ideas_.

Therefore the two series are

Intuition: Demonstration: Belief: Conjecture.
Ideas: Conceptions: Things: Images.

Plato further teaches that the two former terms in each Series belong to the Intelligible, the two latter to the Visible World: and he supposes that the ratio of these two primary segments of the line is the same as the ratio in which each segment is divided[346].

In using the term _Ideas_ to describe the mental sources from which Conceptions derive their validity in demonstration, I am employing a phraseology which I have already introduced in the _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_. But independently altogether of this, I do not see what other term could be employed to denote the mental objects, attributes, or powers, whatever they be, from which Conceptions derive their evidence, as Demonstrative Truths derive their evidence from Intuitive Truths.

That the Scheme just presented is Plato's doctrine on this subject, I do not conceive there can be any doubt. There is a little want of precision in his phraseology, arising from his mixing together the two series. In fact, his final series

_Noësis_: _Dianoia_: _Pistis_: _Eikasia_;

is made by putting in the second place, instead of _Demonstration_, which is the _process_ pursued, or _Science_, which is the _knowledge_ obtained, _Conception_, which is the _object_ with which the mind deals. Such deviations from exact symmetry and correlation in speaking of the faculties of the mind, are almost unavoidable in every language. And there is yet another source of such inaccuracies of language; for we have to speak, not only of the process of acquiring knowledge, and of the objects with which the mind deals, but of the Faculties of the mind which are thus employed. Thus _Intuition_ is the Process; _Ideas_ are the Object, in the first term of our series. The Faculty also we may call _Intuition_; but the Greek offers a distinction. _Noësis_ is the _Process_ of Intuition; but the _Faculty_ is _Nous_. If we wish to preserve this distinction in English, what must we call the Faculty? I conceive we must call it _the Intuitive Reason_, a term well known to our older philosophical writers[347]. Again: taking the second term of the series, _Demonstration_ is the process, _Science_, the result; and _Conceptions_ are the objects with which the mind deals. But what is the _Faculty_ thus employed? What is the Faculty employed in Demonstration? The same philosophical writers of whom I spoke would have answered at once, _the Discursive Reason_; and I do not know that, even now, we can suggest any better term. The Faculty employed in acquiring the two lower kinds of knowledge, the Faculty which deals with Things and their Images is, of course, _Sense_, or _Sensation_.

The assertion of a Faculty of the mind by which it apprehends Truth, which Faculty is higher than the Discursive Reason, as the Truth apprehended by it is higher than mere Demonstrative Truth, agrees (as it will at once occur to several of my readers) with the doctrine taught and insisted upon by the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. And so far as he was the means of inculcating this doctrine, which, as we see, is the doctrine of Plato, and I might add, of Aristotle, and of many other philosophers, let him have due honour. But in his desire to impress the doctrine upon men's minds, he combined it with several other tenets, which will not bear examination. He held that the two Faculties by which these two kinds of truth are apprehended, and which, as I have said, our philosophical writers call _the Intuitive Reason_ and _the Discursive Reason_, may be called, and ought to be called, respectively, _The Reason_ and _The Understanding_; and that the second of these is of the nature of the _Instinct_ of animals, so as to be something intermediate between Reason and Instinct. These opinions, I may venture to say, are altogether erroneous. The Intuitive Reason and the Discursive Reason are not, by any English writers, called the Reason and the Understanding; and accordingly, Coleridge has had to alter all the passages, namely, those taken from Leighton, Harrington, and Bacon, from which his exposition proceeds. The Understanding is so far from being especially the Discursive or Reasoning Faculty, that it is, in universal usage, and by our best writers, _opposed_ to the Discursive or Reasoning Faculty. Thus this is expressly declared by Sir John Davis in his poem _On the Immortality of the Soul_. He says, of the soul,

When she _rates_ things, and moves from ground to ground,
The name of _Reason_ (_Ratio_) she acquires from this:
But when by reason she truth hath found,
And standeth fixt, she _Understanding_ is.

Instead of the Reason being fixed, and the Understanding discursive, as Mr. Coleridge says, the Reason is distinctively discursive; that is, it obtains conclusions by running from one point to another. This is what is meant by _Discursus_; or, taking the full term, _Discursus Rationis_, _Discourse of Reason_. Understanding is fixed, that is, it dwells upon one view of a subject, and not upon the steps by which that view is obtained. The verb _to reason_, implies the substantive, _the Reason_, though it is not coextensive with it: for as I have said, there is the Intuitive Reason as well as the Discursive Reason. But it is by the Faculty of Reason that we are capable of reasoning; though undoubtedly the practice or the pretence of reasoning may be carried so far as to seem at variance with reason in the more familiar sense of the term; as is the case also in French. Moliere's Crisale says (in the _Femmes Savantes_),

Raisonner est l'emploi de toute ma maison,
Et le raisonnement en bannit la Raison.

If Mr. Coleridge's assertion were true, that the Understanding is the discursive and the Reason the fixed faculty, we should be justified in saying that _The Understanding is the faculty by which we reason, and the Reason is the faculty by which we understand_. But this is not so.

Nor is the Understanding of the nature of Instinct, nor does it approach nearer than the Reason to the nature of Instinct, but the contrary. The Instincts of animals bear a very obscure resemblance to any of man's speculative Faculties; but so far as there is any such resemblance, Instinct is an obscure image of Reason, not of Understanding. Animals are said to act as if they reasoned, rather than as if they understood. The verb _understand_ is especially applied to man as distinguished from animals. Mr. Coleridge tells a tale from Huber, of certain bees which, to prevent a piece of honey from falling, balanced it by their weight, while they built a pillar to support it. They did this by Instinct, not _understanding_ what they did; men, doing the same, would have _understood_ what they were doing. Our Translation of the Scriptures, in making it the special distinction of man and animals, that _he has Understanding_ and they have not, speaks quite consistently with good philosophy and good English.

Mr. Coleridge's object in his speculations is nearly the same as Plato's; namely, to declare that there is a truth of a higher kind than can be obtained by mere reasoning; and also to claim, as portions of this higher truth, certain fundamental doctrines of Morality. Among these, Mr. Coleridge places the Authority of Conscience, and Plato, the Supreme Good. Mr. Coleridge also holds, as Plato held, that the Reason of man, in its highest and most comprehensive form, is a portion of a Supreme and Universal Reason; and leads to Truth, not in virtue of its special attributes in each person, but by its own nature.

Many of the opinions which are combined with these doctrines, both in Plato and in Coleridge, are such as we should, I think, find it impossible to accept, upon a careful philosophical examination of them; but on these I shall not here dwell.

I will only further observe, that if any one were to doubt whether the term Νοῦς is rightly rendered _Intuitive Reason_, we may find proof of the propriety of such a rendering in the remarkable discussion concerning the Intellectual Virtues, which we have in the Sixth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics. It can hardly be questioned that Aristotle had in his mind, in writing that passage, the doctrines of Plato, as expounded in the passage just examined, and similar passages. Aristotle there says that there are five Intellectual Virtues, or Faculties by which the Mind aims at Truth in asserting or denying:--namely, _Art_, _Science_, _Prudence_, _Wisdom_, _Nous_. In this enumeration, passing over Art, Prudence, and Wisdom, as virtues which are mainly concerned from practical life, we have, in the region of speculative Truth, a distinction propounded between _Science_ and _Nous_: and this distinction is further explained (c. 6) by the remarks that Science reasons with Principles; and that these Principles cannot be given _by_ Science, because Science reasons _from_ them; nor by Art, nor Prudence, for these are conversant with matters contingent, not with matters demonstrable; nor can the First Principles of the Reasonings of Science be given by Wisdom, for Wisdom herself has often to reason from Principles. Therefore the First Principles of Demonstrative Reasoning must be given by a peculiar Faculty, _Nous_. As we have said, _Intuitive Reason_ is the most appropriate English term for this Faculty.

The view thus given of that higher kind of Knowledge which Plato and Aristotle place above ordinary Science, as being the Knowledge of and Faculty of learning First Principles, will enable us to explain some expressions which might otherwise be misunderstood. Socrates, in the concluding part of this Sixth Book of the _Republic_, says, that this kind of knowledge is "that of which the Reason (λόγος) takes hold, _in virtue of its power of reasoning_[348]." Here we are plainly not to understand that we arrive at First Principles _by reasoning_: for the very opposite is true, and is here taught;--namely, that First Principles are not what we reason _to_, but what we reason _from_. The meaning of this passage plainly is, that First Principles are those of which the Reason takes hold _in virtue of its power of reasoning_;--they are the conditions which must exist in order to make any reasoning possible:--they are the propositions which the Reason must involve implicitly, in order that we may reason explicitly;--they are the intuitive roots of the dialectical power.

In accordance with the views now explained, Plato's Diagram may be thus further expanded. The term ιδέα is not used in this part of the _Republic_; but, as is well known, occurs in its peculiar Platonic sense in the Tenth Book.

+---------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+ | | Intelligible World. νοήτον. | Visible World. ὁρατον.| +---------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |_Object_ | Ideas | Conceptions | Things | Images | | | ἰδέαι | διάνοια | ζῶα κ.τ.λ.| εἰκἰνες | +---------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |_Process_| Intuition | Demonstration | Belief | Conjecture| | | νἰησις | ἐπιστήμη | πίστις | είκασία | +---------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |_Faculty_|Intuitive Reason | Discursive Reason| Sensation | | | νοῦς | λόγος | αἴσθησις | +---------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------------+

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 341: _Pol_. vi. § 19.]

[Footnote 342: He adds, "This _oraton_, this visible world, I will not say has any connexion with _ouranon_, heaven, that I may not be accused of playing upon words."]

[Footnote 343: It is plain that Plato, by _Hypotheses_, in this place, means the usual foundations of Arithmetic and Geometry; namely, Definitions and Postulates. He says that "the arithmeticians and geometers take as hypotheses (hυποθεμενοι) odd and even, and the three kinds of angles (right, acute, and obtuse); and figures, (as a triangle, a square,) and the like." I say his "hypotheses" are the Definitions and Postulates, not the Axioms: for the Axioms of Arithmetic and Geometry belong to the Higher Faculty, which ascends to First Principles. But this Faculty operates rather in using these axioms than in enunciating them. It knows them implicitly rather than expresses them explicitly.]

[Footnote 344: διάνοιαν άλλ' οὐ νοῦν.]

[Footnote 345: The Diagram, as here described, would be this:

+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| _Intelligible World._ | _Visible World._ |
|-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| Intuition. | Conception. | Things. | Images. |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

Plato supposes the whole, and each of the two parts, to be divided in the same ratio, in order that the _analogy_ of the division in each case may be represented.]

[Footnote 346: The four segments might be as 4: 2: 2: 1; or as 9: 6: 6: 4; or generally, as _a_: _ar_: _ar_: _ar_^2.]

[Footnote 347:

Hence the mind Reason receives
Intuitive or Discursive.

MILTON.]

[Footnote 348: τῇ τοῦ διαλέγεσθαι δυνόμει.]