occupy the unobservable yet true reality and are real. Plato considered that the mind is the one thing that can access the timeless reality of truths, the realm of the Forms casting the visible world. The famous allegory of the cave, Plato suggests that humans only know the real world as shadows of the real things they see interacting on a wall.
Plato’s character Socrates suggests that knowledge is not perception because if “perceiving” is equivalent to “knowing,” then when one does not perceive a thing, he no longer possesses the knowledge of the thing that he perceives. Perception on this view can be defined as an instant “phenomenon” in which sense organs partake in interactions with external objects through the act of perceiving. External objects stimulate bodily senses through such interaction from which a type of perception – color, taste, smell, or touch – is experienced. When the act of perceiving ceases to take place, Plato claims that on the view that knowledge is perception, we no longer gain access to the knowledge of the perceived objects.

In conclusion, Plato views perception and conceptualization of perception as separate concepts. He explicitly distinguishes the gap between the very moment of perception and the subsequent process of perception in which sensory stimuli are connected to sensory categories. In addition, animals that are incapable of reasoning are also born with perceptibility just like a man. If a man and an animal were to have the same capacity to perceive in their infant stage, perception can be defined as something devoid of reasoning. Thus Plato’s view of perception is ultimately non-conceptualist – one that considers perception as mere sensory awareness of external stimuli in representational content without subsequent conceptualization of the sensation. According to Plato, perception and conceptualization of perception are two separate concepts residing in different realms, controlled by different entities.