“Attention has been drawn to similarities with the dialectical contemplation of beauty in the Symposium and the dialectical contemplation of the good in Republic. Are they the same process? According to Gerson, Harris, Robin (188-89) and White, the ideas of beauty and good in the Symposium are not identical, but are rather two distinct realities. According to Gerson:
The penultimate vision in fact seems to correspond to the bottom section of the top half of the divided line in Republic. This mode of cognition, namely, ‘discursive reasoning’ (dianoia) is a type of ‘understanding’ (gnosis) as Republic later adds, and is inferior to the mode of cognition that is most properly called ‘knowledge’ (episteme). The one who cognizes the ‘’sea of beatuy’’ is, in fact, on any reading of the text, gazing upon kinds of science, not just the beauty of each. It is the content of each that is expressed in the beautiful logoi. Thus, the ultimate vision would seem to correspond to the top section of the top half of the divided line where cognition is of the Forms in the light of the first principle of all, the Idea of the good.
~Gerson, 63
(From the essay Crazy Love, by Mark Lamarre; underlining & italics mine. I thought this interesting in the light of Lewis’s remarks on savoir and connaître in his Meditation in a Toolshed. )
Following A Star 