Plato's Eikasia/Aristotle's Phantasia

It is tied to sense perception, but it's less clear how it relates to eikasia's objects, per

Well, it seems like the initial presentation of the line is predominantly about its objects (509d-511e), and the images are said to be likenesses of the objects of the subsequent part of the line, and culminates in assigning four affections (or experiences) of the soul to each line segment without further detail. A bit later (533c-534a) we get another summary confirming the assignment of these names to these segments, but not really any further detail about what exactly these affections are, at the expense of focusing on noesis (so eikasia, as a term, I think, only appears three times in all the Republic), so it's admittedly ambiguous or not spelled out whether each affection takes the objects as they are, or whether each affection lower than noesis is fooled into believing that their corresponding objects are real. There does at least seem to be this concrete difference between the objects of eikasia and Aristotle's phantasia: the examples Socrates gives of the former are shadows, reflections in water, reflections in smooth bright things (like mirrors or glass or smooth, wet stones, or what have you), which are things seen by the eye and perhaps understood not to be in there (i.e., we see our own reflection in the water and seem to recognize it as an i.age of ourselves, and not as another self mysteriously in the water), whereas Aristotle has in mind the kind of imaging activity we do when we close our eyes and picture something.

. By the description of the divided line, eikasia's objects are visible images of the objects on the next part of the line, but they seem to be treated as almost exclusively visible shadows or reflections, and not images in the mind. On the other hand, if you look everywhere else in the Republic for how eikos is used, it's plainly broader and gets closer to what's going on with Aristotle's phantasia (so things like the ring of Guges, the city in speech, the Cave, the Sun, the Divided Line, the myth of Er, are all eikoi of a kind). But it might also be broader than what Aristotle has in mind.

I think we're supposed to extrapolate that, but it's curious that if you go to the passage that's supposed to be an account, it seems to be a narrow presentation of the objects. But this is just to say that, though eikoi are important for the entire Republic, their actual account is missing, and maybe even distorted by the arguments addressing specifically the kind of people Glaucon and Adeimantus represent (I have in mind both critiques of poetry in bks. II-III and X, which, taken strictly, undermine the entire dialogue).

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Also it's worth noting that Plato describes the shadows, reflections, etc., as phantasmata.
>[510α] μὲν τὰς σκιάς, ἔπειτα τὰ ἐν τοῖς ὕδασι φαντάσματα καὶ ἐν τοῖς ὅσα πυκνά τε καὶ λεῖα καὶ φανὰ συνέστηκεν, καὶ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον, εἰ κατανοεῖς.
Obviously, Aristotle is the first thinker to flesh out what phantasia, phantasmata are, and he is often dealing with different concerns than Plato, but I thought it was worth pointing out. I don't think Aristotle would deviate too far from standard colloquial usage of the word.

>Also it's worth noting that Plato describes the shadows, reflections, etc., as phantasmata.
A nitpick, but it's specifically "appearances in water", and not a characterization of everything.

That might be something, but I don't see anything in the Republic, anyway, that would allow us to take water as analogous to mind. But it is regularly related to images and reflections, here they all are (since the number of passages are few), and maybe they'll help some:

>363d
>N/A, related to punishment

>402b
>"Now isn't it also true that if images of writings should appear somewhere, in water or in mirrors, we wouldn't recognize them before we knew the things themselves, but both belong to the same art and discipline?"

>404a-b
>N/A, related to either elements/drinking water

>509e-510a
>"I mean by images first shadows, then appearances produced in water and in all close-grained, smooth, bright things, and everything of the sort, if you understand."

>510e
>"These things themselves that they mold and draw, of which there are shadows and images in water, they now use as images, seeking to see those things themselves, that one can see in no other way than with thought."

>516a-b
>"At first he'd most easily make out the shadows; and after that the phantoms ofthe human beings and the other things in water; and, later, the things themselves."
>"Then I suppose he would be able to make out the sun-not its appearances in water or some alien place, but the sun itself by itself in its own region-and see what it's like."

>532b-d
>"Then," I said, "the release from the bonds and the turning around from the shadows to the phantoms and the light, the way up from the cave to the sun; and, once there, the persisting inability to look at the animals and the plants and the sun's light, and looking instead at the divine appearances in water and at shadows of the things that are, rather than as before at shadows of phantoms cast by a light that, when judged in comparison with the sun, also has the quality of a shadow of a phantom-all this activity of the arts, which we went through, has the power to release and leads what is best in the soul up to the contemplation of what is best in the things that are, just as previously what is clearest in the body was led to the contemplation of what is brightest in the region of the bodily and the visible."

>550a
>N/A, watering the soul

>561c
>N/A, drinking water

>602c-d
>"And the same things look bent and straight when seen in water and out of it, and also both concave and convex, due to the sight's being misled by the colors, and every sort of confusion of this kind is
plainly in our soul."

>606d
>N/A, watering the soul

>621a-b
>N/A, water of the river of carelessness

Wouldn't eikos be the objects of eikasia? I thought that the comparison with shadows, reflections, etc., is metaphorical, comparing what images get you compared to what they originate from.

Also it's worth noting that Plato describes the shadows, reflections, etc., as phantasmata.
>[510α] μὲν τὰς σκιάς, ἔπειτα τὰ ἐν τοῖς ὕδασι φαντάσματα καὶ ἐν τοῖς ὅσα πυκνά τε καὶ λεῖα καὶ φανὰ συνέστηκεν, καὶ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον, εἰ κατανοεῖς.
Obviously, Aristotle is the first thinker to flesh out what phantasia, phantasmata are, and he is often dealing with different concerns than Plato, but I thought it was worth pointing out. I don't think Aristotle would deviate too far from standard colloquial usage of the word.