The imagery of the thought project
The thought project is about helping readers understand the philosophical concept of truth. To drive his point, the author uses the imagery of comprehension of seeking the known and unknown regarding Socrates. The author writes, “Here we encounter the difficulty that Socrates calls attention to in the Meno (80, near the end) as a “pugnacious proposition”: a person cannot possibly seek what he knows, and, just as impossibly, he cannot seek what he does not know, for what he knows he cannot seek, since he knows it, and what he does not know he cannot seek, because, after all, he does not even know what he is supposed to seek.”
The imagery of the teacher
The author uses sarcastic imagery that depicts sight to aid readers in seeing why the teacher is not all-knowing. The author writes, “If the teacher is the occasion that reminds the learner, he cannot assist him in recollecting that he does know the truth, for the learner is indeed untruth. That for which the teacher can become the occasion of his recollecting is that he is untruth.”
The imagery of the follower
According to the author, a learner becomes a new person with a unique quality after learning the truth. The author says, “When the learner is untruth (and otherwise we go back to the Socratic) but is nevertheless a human being, and he now receives the condition and the truth, he does not, of course, become a human being for the first time, for he already was that; but he becomes a different person, not in the jesting sense—as if he became someone else of the same quality as before—but he becomes a person of a different quality or, as we can also call it, a new person.”
