Judging Strives to be Knowing

There is a vexing oversight at the end of Book V of the Republic. Socrates engages in a discussion ‘with’ or about the Lovers of Sights and Sounds, in order distinguish philosophers from the seekers of any new experience whatsoever. He’ll do this by showing that there is a difference between knowing, knowledge (γιγνῶσκειν, γνῶσις, ἐπιστήμη) and judging or belief (δοξάζειν, δόξα). This argument involves showing in turn that the objects of knowledge are distinct from the objects of judgement. But this is absurd. For genuine distinctness of objects would entail (I) there is no knowing of sensibles – perhaps more a problem for us moderns; and worse, (II) there is no judgement of Forms – which would seem a serious problem for Plato’s rationalist reformist agenda in ethics. Ingenious readings have therefore sought to avoid this intolerable conclusion, by rejecting the mutual exclusivity of the domains of the objects of knowing and objects of judging. I aim to show, on the contrary, that we cannot escape this; we ought not escape it; and that attention to this reveals interesting contours in the structure of Plato’s epistemology. This paper will focus on the first Intolerable Conclusion, there is no knowing of sensibles.