Divided Line and Myth of the Cave Questions

6. How does Socrates answer Glaukon's question, "What is the Good"? How do we know it? Can we know it?

7. The Divided Line (510d5-511e5):

1. What is the basic two-part division that Socrates sets up in his divided line example?
2. Let's work our way up the sections from bottom to top: in the lower section of the basic two-part division, which Socrates wants us to further divide into two parts, what are the two objects of knowledge or two kinds of things that we can know? How do we know them?
3. Now it gets tricky: in the upper section, which again Socrates divides into two parts, what is the object of knowledge (or kind of things we can know) in the lower part? How do we know this object? (This is probably the most difficult part to understand. The object of knowledge and the method of knowing it are practically the same. Read the passage in Plato closely.)
4. What is the object of knowledge in the upper part, the highest part of the four-part division? How do we know this? (This is the most significant part of the discussion! Compare this knowing ability to what Hobbes says in Leviathan chapters 1-5 and what Aristotle says about rational intuition (or intuitive reason) in Nicomachean Ethics VI.6 and about philosophic wisdom in VI.7.)
5. In the last speech of Book VI, what does Socrates call these four types of knowledge that he has described in the divided line example? Name the four in order from bottom to top or top to bottom.

8. How is the reality of the objects related to the level of knowledge necessary to know them?

(For each answer, cite a specific source, e.g., 341b, 344c-d. (Stephanus numbers; see "Stephanus numbers")

Book Seven.

1. Compare the individual's progress in the Myth or Parable of the Cave with the figure of the divided line in Book VI. What is the object of each ascent?

1. What is the initial or first thing that prisoners in the cave "know"?
2. What is next? then next? and so on?
3. Using the objects of knowledge that we identified in the divided line example, what kinds of objects of knowledge does the freed prisoner see as he progresses out of the cave and into the sunlight?
4. How does the division of the Myth into an in-cave section and an out-of-cave section fit the divided line divisions? Is the in-cave portion "below the line" and the out-of-cave portion "above the line"? Read closely.
5. Finally, in both the divided line and Myth of the Cave examples, what role does light and "the good" play in the process of knowing things?

2. What is the essence of the "education" of a philosopher?