In Timaeus 51d3-e6 Plato claims that only if there is a real difference between knowledge (epistêmê or nous) and true belief (doxa) is there a ontological distinction between the Forms and the perceptible particulars; and that epistêmê differs from true doxa in that it is acquired through being taught (rather than being persuaded), that it is accompanied by a true 'account' (logos) (rather than being without logos) and that it cannot be dislodged by persuasion (rather than that it can). The question to be addressed is where Plato gets this account of epistêmê versus true doxa from, and how this account subsequently leads to the postulation of Forms as ontologically distinct from the perceptible particulars. I will argue that Plato develops this account taking his cue from how knowledge claims appear in common usage, in contexts where there is clear empirical evidence, that a crucial part of this account is that epistêmê be stable or rationally irrevisable and that it is stable because it is based on an anchoring cognition, for example of evidence. The list of differentiating features of the Timaeus can be explained in this way, but the feature that epistêmê is accompanied by an account suggests a more specific context, that of an expertise capacity for true and stable judgements concerned with general objects, like flutes (flute playing expertise), things large and small (measurement expertise), human bodies (medicine). Plato analyses such epistemic capacities in such a way, that they have, as anchoring cognition, a concept of the general object at its core, but argues famously, for example in the final argument of Republic book 5, that perception is not a suitable source to acquire this anchoring cognition.

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Marisa Leu
Institut für Philosophie
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