Tuflos: Our Take

Thinking through Plato's use of the term tuflos

Throughout the dialogue Plato uses tuflos to characterize many different things: eyes (353c3; 508c7; 518c1), a love or instrument of the soul (411d4; 527e1; 554b5), men (465d1; 484c3; 484c6; 506c7; 550d6), opinions (506c6), and ugly things (506c11).   To unify this apparently heterogeneous usage, one must consider it in light of the analogy of the divided line.