Abstract
Plato often speaks of "seeing the truth" in his dialogues after the middle period, especially in Phaedo, Phaedrus and so on, as well as "seeing the beauty" in Symposium and Phaedrus, and about these concepts he says various things. In doing so, he uses the expression "seeing" instead of "recognizing" or "comprehending". This reminds us of Christian mystics' "seeing God" (visio Dei) or of "seeing the Buddha" in Buddhism. Plato talks in many ways about the conditions necessary to attain the object of "seeing the truth" ; for instance, he enumerates the purification of mind, the emancipation from that which is worldly, or the transcendence above human sensations of pain and pleasure ; and as to what can be desired in consequence of them, he says that a person can be relieved of evils, gain a happy and harmonious state of mind and real virtue, feel life is worth living, be endowed with wings for one's soul, dwell in a beautiful heavenly house, and live together with gods ; that is, he explains both the worldly and the unworldly sense in detail. He says almost nothing, however, as to what the so called "seeing the truth" itself is. Thus, the writer tries to infer, though in a limited degree, what Plato meant and what he wanted to express with the words "seeing the truth", recalling that, for example, Meister Eckhart says the condition of visio Dei is to obtain purity of mind and what is given in consequence of it is exuberant delight.
