The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

by Arthur Herman

I pull out a ruler and compass. I begin tracing circles and measuring their diameter and their circumference. I split them into sections, first on paper, then in my mind. I am in Plato’s realm of dianoia, the realm of geometry and number.3 I continue to draw and calculate and watch as the shapes dissolve into lines, points, triangles, and parabolas. Finally, only the numbers are left. I realize they express mathematical formulae that exist in perfect proportion to each other, with each ratio (1:2, 1:3) leading constantly to a higher and higher level of abstract order. Then I have it. This order and proportion is everywhere, eternal, and unchanging. A single unity governs all things. I cut my last links to the sensory material world and contemplate that unity of which my original soccer ball is only a distant, dim shadow. A voice at my shoulder tells me gently, “Now at last you are in the realm of the real and the intelligible.” I have achieved “the highest form of knowledge,” the voice tells me, “and the vision of the Good.” This is true knowledge, epistēmē: Plato’s realm of the Forms.