Abstract

In the epistemology of his middle period, Plato repeatedly describes the alleged ‘intellection of true reality’ in terms of sight, vision, illumination, or touch. Does this show more than Plato’s preference for optic and haptic metaphors? Should we assume that this goes back to a specific reason to be found in his underlying epistemological position? On the traditional reading, Plato actually wants to defend a sort of intuitionism. According to this still wide-spread reading, he claims that there is a very particular way of grasping Forms: Philosophers manage to come into a sort of direct contact with intelligible objects. Intellection is thus conceived as a quasi-visual presence of intelligible Forms. In our contribution, we want to challenge this interpretation by raising several objections against it. Surprisingly, there exists a close parallel in Aristotelian scholarship: Although Aristotle’s epistemology is built on considerably different foundations, there is an interpretative tradition according to which one has to assume a strict discontinuity between the methodical procedure and the intellection of the highest epistemic objects. As for Plato, we want to refuse an interpretation of Aristotle based on a concept of intuition characterized by the following features: Intuition is a specific way of gaining knowledge. It is independent of empirical conditions and leads to apriori knowledge. It consists of some experience of evidence or is accompanied by it. Knowledge gained by this kind of intuition does not need any further argument or justification