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20931935 No.20931935 [Reply] [Original]

What *exactly* is the difference between logos, episteme, nous, and sophia, as Plato would have understood it? From the Republic to the Seventh Letter, I've seen all kinds of translations, but all seem suspect:
>episteme=account... but then what makes that different from logos?
>episteme=science... but obviously the Greeks didn't think in the same empirical terms as Science™ does today
>nous="first principles", so would that be the unit and the indeterminate dyad, the limited, the unlimited, the mixed, and the cause?
>sophia=combines episteme and nous, though I am unsure what that would look like. Seems like a placeholder word.
>"The Fifth": a "gnosis-like" type of knowledge from the Seventh Letter that reminds me of the revelatory flash of the Form of the Good in The Republic. Has a "seeing is believing", almost irrational, quality to it.

I would love to list all the distinct forms of knowledge (image, name, logos, episteme, "fifth"), align them with the appropriate metaphysical category (unlimited, limited, mixed, cause, ...?), section of the Divided Line (eikasia, pistis, dianoia, noesis, Form of the Good), etc. But I am not sure if that is possible.

Don't get me started on Aristotle, who brings in concepts like:
>theoria
>phronesis
While having severe metaphysical clashes with Plato like denying the existence, or at least the relevance, of the Form of the Good and attacking the unit and the indeterminate dyad (which he may not have fully understood due to lacking the mathematical know-how). How the hell does Aristotle's arrangement of the intellectual virtues compare with what was delineated by his former teacher?

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>>20931935
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