James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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τὴν δύναμιν sc. τοῦ γιγνώσκειν is not the faculty of Knowledge or Reason, but the power to exercise that faculty, hardly different, indeed, from the actual exercise of Reason (‘die thatkräftige Aeusserung’ Biehl l.c.). Hence γνώσεως (‘the exercise of knowledge,’ cf. ὅρασις, νόησις and the like) below. Plato's exposition suffers somewhat from the want of a strict philosophical nomenclature. Aristotle would have expressed the same meaning by saying that ὄψις and νοῦς are two δυνάμεις, which ἐνεργοῦσι through Light and Truth respectively, becoming in the one case ὅρασις, in the other νόησις. Plato's τὴν δύναμιν, in fact, is nearly equivalent to Aristotle's τὴν ἐνέργειαν. Cf. Biehl l.c. pp. 50—53.

αἰτίαν κτλ. ‘And being the cause of Knowledge and Truth, I would have you conceive of it as apprehended, no doubt, by Knowledge, but beautiful as is the act of Knowledge, and beautiful though Truth be, you will be right in thinking that it is something other and even more beautiful than these.’ The words αἰτίαν—ἀληθείας sum up and carry on τὸ—ἀποδιδόν. ὡς γιγνωσκομένην is in predicative agreement with αἰτίαν after διανοοῦ (cf. Pol. 258 C πάσας τὰς ἐπιστήμας ὡς οὔσας δύο εἴδη διανοηθῆναι): the words are the counterpart of ὁ ἥλιος— ὁρᾶται ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς ταύτης (sc. τῆς ὄψεως) in the simile 508 B. μέν after γιγνωσκομένην balances δέ after οὕτω: though apprehended by Knowledge, and therefore in some sense subject thereto, the Idea of Good is (as being the cause of both) more beautiful than Knowledge and Truth. I have (with van Heusde) altered γιγνωσκομένης of the best MSS— see cr. n.—to γιγνωσκομένην. On other interpretations of this difficult passage see App. IX.