Sun, Line, and Cave Again

Abstract

I Want in this paper briefly to contribute two points to the elucidation of this famous passage, and apologize for the fact that my possessing the same name as one of its most illustrious interpreters may add confusion to the doxographic tradition.The first point is not an original one. It is simply to revive an interpretation given by Henry Jackson in an article which strikes me as the most profound and pellucid which I have read on the subject, and which is in some danger of being forgotten. Raven, about ten years ago, insisted as a criterion of interpretation that the entire passage should be viewed ‘as a single and indivisible whole’. This is precisely what Jackson does, though he concentrates his attention, as indeed does Raven, on the line and the cave.