The Intelligible & the Sensible

The distinction between the intelligible (noēton) and the sensible (aisthēton) is the great divide of Platonic metaphysics: between what is grasped only by intellect — the Forms, eternal and unchanging — and what is perceived by the senses, the flowing world of becoming.

In the Timaeus the sensible cosmos is fashioned as a moving image of an intelligible model; in the Enneads the intelligible world is the very life of Intellect, where being and thought are one. To turn from the sensible to the intelligible — from image to reality — is, for the whole tradition, the soul’s ascent.