Che ruolo giocano le matematiche nella metafora della linea?

The paper investigates a section of the so called metaphor of the «divided line» (Republic, 510b2-511b11). First, a new translation of the first lines of the text is proposed, on the basis of the Sling's recent edition and with slight modification of the punctuation. Secondly, the author argues that the reference of the mathematics and of the geometrians' methods has to be regarded not so much as if Plato was actually criticizing them, but as a telling example of the incorrect way of understanding intellectual cognition. This incorrect way of knowing consists in claiming to grasp the ideas through an intellectual insight fashioned on the model of sensible vision. It is incorrect because according to Plato human insight cannot be but sensible. Such a conclusion confirms the hypothesis, endorsed by several scholars, that according to Plato even the highest kind of cognition that human beings dispose of is not intuitive but discursive.