Yes.
And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge?
Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same.
Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion?
Yes, something else.
Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing?
Impossible.
He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing?
Yes.
And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing?
True.
Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge?
True, he said.
Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being?
Not with either.
And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge?
That seems to be true.
But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance?
In neither.
Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?
Both; and in no small degree.
And also to be within and between them?
Yes.
Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?
No question.