Third Eye

It is said, in fact, that having found the theory of ideas, [Plato] dreamt that he had a third eye.

(Anonymous, Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, as translated by L. G. Westerink)

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Among the wisest of the Greeks there was a proverb that Plato had three eyes: one by which human, another by which natural, and a third by which divine concerns were surveyed by him, which last eye was in his forehead, the others being under it.

(Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato's Philebus, as translated by Thomas Taylor)

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Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence. You can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.

(Henry Thomas Buckle, as quoted by Charles Stewart)

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That there is a lot of modern occult discussion of a third eye in the middle of the forehead that can see divine things notwithstanding, it seems to me that Plato's three eyes are simply the sense-eye of the body, the reason-eye of the soul, and the intuition-eye of the Intellect.

On the Sense Organs of the Soul

Diogenes was fond of auditing Plato's lectures at the Academy, not so much as a student, but as a heckler. On one occasion, Plato was discoursing on the topic of the Ideas, discussing "tableness" and "cupness" and the like. Diogenes interrupted him and said, "But Plato! I can see a table and a cup, but I can't see 'tableness' and 'cupness.'"

Plato replied, "Well, while any given instance of an Idea is visible to the senses, the Idea itself is visible only to the intellect. So what you have said is natural enough, since while you have eyes, alas! you have no brain."