Abstract

Plato's theory of knowledge and belief is an important topic in Platonic scholarship. There are at least two interpretations of Plato's theory of knowledge and belief. (a) The two worlds (or objects) interpretation (TW), and it has two versions: the degree of existence interpretation (DE) and the degree of reality interpretation (DR). According to DE, objects of knowledge fully exist, and objects of belief do not fully exist. According to DR, objects of knowledge are fully real, and objects of belief are not fully real. The main claim of TW is: knowledge and belief range over different objects; knowl­edge ranges over Forms,·and belief ranges over the sensibles. This claim implies that we can have knowledge only of Forms, and belief only of the sensibles. The second interpretation of Plato's theory is b), the content interpretation. There are two versions of the content interpretation. First, there is the degrees of truth (DT) or individual truth version: Knowledge is set over truth, and belief is set over partial truth. Second, there is Fine's collective truth version (CT). The main claim of CT is that: knowledge collects truths (i.e., knowledge entails truth), and that belief collects truths and falsehoods (i.e., some beliefs are true and some are false). This claim implies that knowledge and belief are not always set over different things, i.e., we can have knowledge of the sensibles, and beliefs of Forms. TW is obviously incompatible with CT. It is surprising that little defense of TW has been given following Fine's objection to TW. In this paper, TW will be defended, and it will be argued that CT is not a correct reading of Plato.