Editing Analogy of the divided line (section)

== Description ==

In ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'' (509d–510a), Socrates describes the divided line to Glaucon this way:

{{quotation|Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion,<ref name="unequal">Older Greek texts do not differentiate unequal from an equal (ανίσα, αν ίσα)</ref> and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand?<br><br>Yes, I understand.<br><br>Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made.<ref name="Republic">[[Plato]], ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'', Book 6, translated by [[Benjamin Jowett]], [http://www.filepedia.org/files/Plato%20-%20The%20Republic.pdf online] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090418215659/http://www.filepedia.org/files/Plato%20-%20The%20Republic.pdf |date=18 April 2009 }}</ref> }}
[[Image:DividedLine.svg|thumb|left|upright=1.3|The Divided Line – ('''AC''') is generally taken as representing the visible world and ('''CE''') as representing the intelligible world.<ref name="CDP">"divided line," ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'', 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1999, {{ISBN|0-521-63722-8}}, p. 239.</ref>]]
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