But if we understand pro-duction in a Greek manner, in the sense of bringing forth the Idea (bringing the outward appearance of something into something else, no matter in what way), then the mirror does in this particular sense pro-duce the sun.
With regard to "pointing the mirror in all directions," and to its mirroring, Glaucon must therefore agree immediately: Ναί, "Certainly," that is a producing of "beings"; but he adds, φαινόμενα, οὐ μέντοι ὄντα γέ που τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. But what shows itself in the mirror "only looks like, but all the same is not, something present in unconcealment," which is to say, undistorted by the "merely outwardly appearing as," i.e., undistorted by semblance. Socrates supports him: καλῶς, ... καὶ εἰς δέον ἔρχῃ τῷ λόγῳ. "Fine, and by saying that you go to the heart of what is proper (to the matter)." Mirroring does produce beings, indeed as self-showing, but not as beings in un-concealment or nondistortion. Juxtaposed to one another here are on φαινόμενον and ὂν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, being as self-showing and being as undistorted; by no means φαινόμενον as "semblance" and "the merely apparent," on the one hand, and ὂν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ as "Being," on the other; in each case it is a matter of ὄν—"what is present"—-but in different ways of presencing. But is that not the same, the self-showing and the undistorted? Yes and no. Same with respect to what becomes present (house), same to the extent that in each case it is a presencing; but in each case the τρόπος differs. In one case the "house" becomes present by showing itself and appearing in, and by means of, the glittering surface of the mirror; in the other the "house" is present by showing itself in stone and wood. The more firmly we hold on to the selfsameness, the more significant the distinction must become. Plato here is wrestling with the conception of the varying τρόπος, that is, at [181] the same time and above all, with the determination of that "way" in which ὄν itself shows itself most purely, so that it does not portray itself by means of something else but presents itself in such a way that its outward appearance, εἶδος, constitutes its Being. Such self-showing is the εἶδος as ἰδέα.
Two kinds of presence result: the house (i.e., the ἰδέα) shows itself in the mirror or in the "house" itself at hand. Consequently, two kinds