[
478a]
that opinion is a different
1 thing from scientific
knowledge.” “Yes, different.” “Each
of them, then, since it has a different power, is related to a different
object.” “Of necessity.” “Science, I
presume, to that which is, to know the condition of that which is. But
opinion, we say, opines.” “Yes.”
“Does it opine the same thing that science knows, and will the
knowable and the opinable be identical, or is that impossible?”
“Impossible by our admissions,
2” he said.
“If different faculties are naturally related to different objects
[
478b]
and both opinion and science are
faculties, but each different from the other, as we say—these
admissions do not leave place for the identity of the knowable and the
opinable.” “Then, if that which is is knowable,
something other than that which is would be the opinable.
3”
“Something else.” “Does it opine that which is
not,
4 or is it impossible even to opine that
which is not? Reflect: Does not he who opines bring his opinion to bear upon
something or shall we reverse ourselves and say that it is possible to
opine, yet opine nothing?” “That is
impossible.” “Then he who opines opines some one
thing.” “Yes.” “But surely that
which is not could not be designated as some one thing, but
[
478c]
most rightly as nothing at all. To that which
is not we of necessity assigned nescience, and to that which is,
knowledge.” “Rightly,” he said.
“Then neither that which is nor that which is not is the object of
opinion.” “It seems not.” “Then
opinion would be neither nescience nor knowledge.” “So
it seems.” “Is it then a faculty outside of these,
exceeding either knowledge in lucidity or ignorance in obscurity?”
“It is neither.” “But do you deem opinion
something darker than knowledge but brighter than ignorance?”
“Much so,” he said. “And does it lie within
the boundaries
[
478d]
of the two?”
“Yes.” “Then opinion would be between the
two.” “Most assuredly.” “Were we not
saying a little while ago
5
that if anything should turn up
6 such that it both is and is not, that sort of thing would lie
between that which purely and absolutely is and that which wholly is not,
and that the faculty correlated with it would be neither science or
nescience, but that which should appear to hold a place correspondingly
between nescience and science.” “Right.”
“And now there has turned up between these two the thing that we
call opinion.” “There has.”
[
478e]
“It
would remain, then, as it seems, for us to discover that which partakes of
both, of to be and not to be, and that could not be rightly designated
either in its exclusive purity; so that, if it shall be discovered, we may
justly pronounce it to be the opinable, thus assigning extremes to extremes
and the intermediate to the intermediate. Is not that so?”
“It is.” “This much premised, let him tell me,