Editing Analogy of the divided line (section)

== The visible world ==
Thus '''AB''' represents shadows and reflections of physical things, and '''BC''' the physical things themselves. These correspond to two kinds of [[Platonic epistemology|knowledge]], the '''illusion''' (''eikasía'') of our ordinary, everyday experience, and '''[[belief]]''' (πίστις ''pistis'') about discrete physical objects which cast their shadows.<ref name="PenguinNotes">Desmond Lee and [[Rachana Kamtekar]], ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'', Notes to Book 6, Penguin, 1987, {{ISBN|0-14-044914-0}}.</ref> In the ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'', the category of illusion includes all the "opinions of which the minds of ordinary people are full," while the natural sciences are included in the category of belief.<ref name="PenguinNotes" />

The term '''eikasía''' ({{langx|grc|εἰκασία}}), meaning ''conjecture'' in Greek, was used by [[Plato]] to refer to a human way of dealing with appearances.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/foldop/foldoc.cgi?eikasia |title=eikasia |work=FOLDOC |accessdate=2006-06-22 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620035437/http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/foldop/foldoc.cgi?eikasia |archivedate=2006-06-20 }}</ref> Particularly, it is identified as the lower subsection of the visible segment and represents images, which Plato described as "first shadows, then reflections in water and in all compacted, smooth, and shiny materials".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Transformation of Plato's Republic|last=Dorter|first=Kenneth|date=2006|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=0739111876|location=Lanham, MD|pages=191}}</ref> According to the philosopher, ''eikasia'' and ''[[pistis]]'' add up to ''[[doxa]]'', which is concerned with genesis (becoming).<ref>{{Cite book|title=An Examination of Plato's Doctrines: Plato on Knowledge and Reality, Volume 7|last=Crombie|first=I. M.|publisher=Routledge|year=2012|isbn=9780415632171|location=Oxon|pages=91}}</ref>

''Eikasia'' has several interpretations. For instance, it is the inability to perceive whether a [[perception]] is an [[image]] of something else. It therefore prevents us from perceiving that a [[dream]] or [[memory]] or a reflection in a [[mirror]] is not [[reality]] as such. Another variation posited by scholars such Yancey Dominick, explains that it is a way of understanding the originals that generate the objects that are considered as ''eikasia''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NKY5DwAAQBAJ&dq=eikasia+plato&pg=PT232|title=The Teleology of Action in Plato's Republic|last=Payne|first=Andrew|date=2017-10-13|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780192536693|language=en}}</ref> This allows one to distinguish the image from reality such as the way one can avoid mistaking a reflection of a tree in a puddle for a tree.<ref name=":0" />