The following Greek philosophers used visual analogies to illustrate the different types or stages of knowledge in the human mind. What is common to these analogies is that the highest knowledge is a comprehensive, holistic or integrated understanding of the whole and is closest to objective truth. It is an intuitive knowledge or direct insight of the wise man or philosopher.

Parmenides

Parmenides presented a foundational philosophical distinction between two paths of inquiry in his surviving poem, often referred to as On Nature. These are known as the "Way of Truth" (ἀλήθει...

Schopenhauer imagined a dialogue between matter, which represents the viewpoint of materialism, and the subject of cognition, representing the viewpoint of idealism, to show that these views are not contradicting each other but are complementary parts of the whole of reality. This dialogue can be found in Schopenhauer’s handwritten legacy, volume 3, Adversaria no. 263.

What follows is my translation from the original German text.

Microcosm and Macrocosm:

a dialogue between matter and the subject of cognition.

The confl...

Spinoza postulated three different kinds of knowledge in his Ethica:

Ex omnibus supra dictis clare apparet nos multa percipere et notiones universales formare I° ex singularibus nobis per sensus mutilate, confuse et sine ordine ad intellectum repræsentatis (vide corollarium propositionis 29 hujus) et ideo tales perceptiones cognitionem ab experientia vaga vocare consuevi. II° ex signis exempli gratia ex eo quod auditis aut lectis quibusdam verbis rerum recordemur et earum quasdam ideas formemus similes iis per quas res imaginamur (vide scholium propositionis 18 huju...