A Comparison between the Epistemologies of Plato and St. Thomas Aquinas

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must be knowledge of the universal and abiding."[3]

Our senses can deceive us. Plato argues, "if knowledge is perception, then no man can be wiser than any other man, for each man is the best judge of his own sense perception."[4]

Degrees of Knowledge

Plato's epistemology makes a distinction between opinion and knowledge. There are degrees of knowledge. He illustrated this using the concept of the "divided line." One is to image a horizontal line that separates the world of reason from the world of senses. The bottom portion of this line would refer to the visible world - the world we experience with our senses. According to Plato, knowledge attained here is merely opinion. This portion is further divided by a shorter horizontal line into two further sections: Conjecture and Belief. The lower part of these two is Conjecture. Conjecture refers to "first shadows, then appearances produced in water and in all close-grained, smooth, bright things, and everything of the ...

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But this mental copy can be altered as the thinker may wish. It can be modified, destroyed; all in the realm of the imagination. Above the Understanding we have the Dialectic. This is where the actual Form exists. This is where we would find the actual perfect circle. This is the only source of real knowledge.

Thus knowledge is progressive. Someone may give me a picture of a drawn circle. This drawn circle is Conjecture. They may then give me a piece of paper with the circle drawn on it. This is Belief. I can then imagine a line intersecting a circle. This circle would be in the realm of Understanding. However, through all of these progressions my knowledge about the circle ...

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