Epistêmê Is of What Is
If Plato’s epistemology is indeed objects-based, then he conceives of epistêmê first and foremost as the cognition of a certain kind of object. What is this object? We find a clear answer in the powers argument: epistêmê is of what is, or being. Indeed throughout the dialogues Plato treats this claim as a basic principle, something that everyone will accept. But this may seem an unhelpful answer, for Plato’s talk of being is famously ambiguous, and much debated. I will argue that there is nonetheless a general characterization available: in contexts relevant to the correlation of epistêmê with being, regardless of what ‘being’ or variants mean, the label ‘being’ serves a common function: it privileges certain items above others. The key notion should be understood as the ontologically superior, or of what really is, by contrast with things that have some derivative or inferior status. Epistêmê’s defining object is Being in this sense.