Knowledge vs Opinion

The contrast between episteme (knowledge) and doxa (opinion or belief) lies at the heart of Plato's thought in the 4th century BCE. In the Meno and the Republic he argues that a true opinion, however correct, stays unstable and inferior to knowledge until it is 'tied down' by an account of the reason why — and that real knowledge takes the unchanging Forms, not the shifting world of the senses, as its objects. This distinction set the agenda for epistemology, framing the lasting question of what turns a true belief into knowledge.