Thesis Writing

1.2 PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

We can follow some of Socrates’ themes by exploring the ideas of Plato (c. 428–348 B.C.), Socrates’ most famous disciple. (Further biographical information on Plato can be found in section 3.2.) If we are to search for wisdom and to know how to live our lives, Plato believed, we must have a correct understanding of knowledge and reality. Plato’s view of reality, as well as his view of knowledge and personal enlightenment, is represented in his famous Allegory of the Cave, which has become a classic story in Western literature. In this allegory, Plato suggests the possibility that reality may be entirely different than our taken-for-granted assumptions suppose it to be. In telling this story, Plato uses the figure of his teacher Socrates to present his ideas. As you read the allegory, answer the following questions.

Can you imagine the scene in the cave Socrates describes? Sketch a picture of all the elements in the cave.

Glaucon says the people in the story are “strange prisoners.” Socrates then gives the stunning reply that they are “like ourselves.” Why do you suppose Socrates compares us to these prisoners?

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This diagram of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave represents chained prisoners whose only reality is the shadow world projected on the wall in front of them. They are unaware that behind them is the higher degree of reality of the fire and the statues that are casting the shadows. Still further up is the steep and rugged passage out of the cave to the upper world. A prisoner who follows this path will encounter the world of real objects and the sun. Plato used this story as a rough analogy to the modes of awareness and levels of reality discussed in his philosophy.

What do the shadows stand for?

What are the “shadows” in our society? In your life?

According to this story, what is enlightenment?

In what sense does the freed prisoner not understand the shadows as well as his friends do when he returns to the cave? In what sense does he understand the shadows better than his friends do?

In what ways are the events in the enlightened prisoner’s life like the events in the historical Socrates’ life?

Summarize what philosophical points you think Plato is making in this allegory.

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FROM PLATO

Republic10

SOCRATES: And now, let me show in a parable how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light. Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they can not move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning their heads around. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walk; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the walkway, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

GLAUCON: I see.

SOCRATES: And do you see men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

GLAUCON: You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

SOCRATES: Like ourselves; and they see only their own shadow, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.

GLAUCON: True; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

SOCRATES: And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

GLAUCON: Very true.

SOCRATES: And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the cave wall, would they not be sure to believe when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

GLAUCON: No question.

SOCRATES: To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

GLAUCON: That is certain.

SOCRATES: And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains. The glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to reality and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision. What will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him