  Regardless of the epistemic status of the physical world, one task is to understand how Plato thinks the transition is made from one's perceptions and beliefs about the physical world to knowledge of the Forms. In the Republic, Socrates says that every human being is capable of becoming a philosopher and thus able to know the Good and all the Forms (518c). On the other hand, the Republic leaves little doubt that Plato expects that few will actually achieve the knowledge each is capable of. Most of us will give in to the ordinary beliefs generated through our perceptual encounters with the sensible world, as well as those resulting from the conversations we have with one another. Most will never even begin, it seems, the course of study outlined in Book VII, and most of those who begin will not become dialectically sophisticated so that they can give an account of what they know that will ‘destroy the hypotheses'. But despite the odds, from the Phaedo and Republic we can locate two elements of Plato's epistemological program that can lead to knowledge if properly exercised, recollection and the method of hypothesis. The latter is mentioned explicitly in the Phaedo and seems again to be alluded to in Plato's remarks about the differences between the top two sections of line. Since this method, assuming that it is the same in both, appears to be deployed as part of the final stages of the pursuit of knowledge, there is reason to postpone consideration of the method until after consideration of perception and belief, i.e., the first two stages of Line.