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2011-01-15 15:21:49 UTC
Allegory of the Cave
The Allegory of the Cave – also known as the Analogy of the Cave,
Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave – is an allegory used by the
Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our
nature in its education and want of education" (514a). It is written
as a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's
brother Glaucon at the beginning of Book VII (chapter IX in Robin
Waterfield's translation) (514a–520a). The Allegory of the Cave is
presented after the metaphor of the sun (507b–509c) and the analogy of
the divided line (509d–513e). Allegories are summarized in the
viewpoint of dialectic at the end of Book VII and VIII (531d-534e).
Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the
wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people
watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a
fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows.
According to Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get
to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a
prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the
shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can
perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by
the prisoners.
The Allegory is related to Plato's Theory of Forms,[citation needed]
according to which the "Forms" (or "Ideas"), and not the material
world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and
most fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the Forms
constitutes real knowledge.[1] In addition, the Allegory of the Cave
is an attempt to explain the philosopher's place in society.
]Inside the cave
Socrates begins by describing a scenario in which what people take to
be real would in fact be an illusion. He asks Glaucon to imagine a
cave inhabited by prisoners who have been chained and held immobile
since childhood: not only are their arms and legs held in place, but
their heads are also fixed, compelled to gaze at a wall in front of
them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire
and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which people walk
carrying things on their heads "including figures of men and animals
made of wood, stone and other materials". The prisoners watch the
shadows cast by the men, not knowing they are shadows. There are also
echoes off the wall from the noise produced from the walkway.
Socrates suggests the prisoners would take the shadows to be real
things and the echoes to be real sounds, not just reflections of
reality, since they are all they had ever seen or heard. They would
praise as clever whoever could best guess which shadow would come
next, as someone who understood the nature of the world, and the whole
of their society would depend on the shadows on the wall.
Release from the cave
Socrates next introduces something new to this scenario. Suppose that
a prisoner is freed and permitted to stand up. If someone were to show
him the things that had cast the shadows, he would not recognize them
for what they were and could not name them; he would believe the
shadows on the wall to be more real than what he sees.
"Suppose further," Socrates says, "that the man was compelled to look
at the fire: wouldn't he be struck blind and try to turn his gaze back
toward the shadows, as toward what he can see clearly and hold to be
real? What if someone forcibly dragged such a man upward, out of the
cave: wouldn't the man be angry at the one doing this to him? And if
dragged all the way out into the sunlight, wouldn't he be distressed
and unable to see "even one of the things now said to be true," viz.
the shadows on the wall
After some time on the surface, however, Socrates suggests that the
freed prisoner would acclimate. He would see more and more things
around him, until he could look upon the Sun. He would understand that
the Sun is the "source of the seasons and the years, and is the
steward of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way
the cause of all those things he and his companions had been
seeing" (See also Plato's metaphor of the Sun, which occurs near the
end of The Republic,
Return to the cave
Socrates next asks Glaucon to consider the condition of this man.
"Wouldn't he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there,
and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them
pitiable? And wouldn't he disdain whatever honors, praises, and prizes
were awarded there to the ones who guessed best which shadows followed
which? Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn't he be rather bad at
their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? Wouldn't it be
said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and
that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow
able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release
and lead up, wouldn't they kill him?"
Remarks on the allegory
Socrates remarks that this allegory can be taken with what was said
before, viz. the metaphor of the Sun, and the divided line. In
particular, he likens
"the region revealed through sight" – the ordinary objects we see
around us – "to the prison home, and the light of the fire in it to
the power of the Sun. And in applying the going up and the seeing of
what's above to the soul's journey to the intelligible place, you not
mistake my expectation, since you desire to hear it. A god doubtless
knows if it happens to be true. At all events, this is the way the
phenomena look to me: in the region of the knowable the last thing to
be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of good; but
once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all
things of all that is right and beautiful – in the visible realm it
gives birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible realm,
itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence – and that the
man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see
it"
After "returning from divine contemplations to human evils", a man
"is graceless and looks quite ridiculous when – with his sight still
dim and before he has gotten sufficiently accustomed to the
surrounding darkness – he is compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to
contend about the shadows of justice or the representations of which
they are the shadows, and to dispute about the way these things are
understood by men who have never seen justice itself?"
The Allegory of the Cave – also known as the Analogy of the Cave,
Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave – is an allegory used by the
Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our
nature in its education and want of education" (514a). It is written
as a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's
brother Glaucon at the beginning of Book VII (chapter IX in Robin
Waterfield's translation) (514a–520a). The Allegory of the Cave is
presented after the metaphor of the sun (507b–509c) and the analogy of
the divided line (509d–513e). Allegories are summarized in the
viewpoint of dialectic at the end of Book VII and VIII (531d-534e).
Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the
wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people
watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a
fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows.
According to Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get
to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a
prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the
shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can
perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by
the prisoners.
The Allegory is related to Plato's Theory of Forms,[citation needed]
according to which the "Forms" (or "Ideas"), and not the material
world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and
most fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the Forms
constitutes real knowledge.[1] In addition, the Allegory of the Cave
is an attempt to explain the philosopher's place in society.
]Inside the cave
Socrates begins by describing a scenario in which what people take to
be real would in fact be an illusion. He asks Glaucon to imagine a
cave inhabited by prisoners who have been chained and held immobile
since childhood: not only are their arms and legs held in place, but
their heads are also fixed, compelled to gaze at a wall in front of
them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire
and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which people walk
carrying things on their heads "including figures of men and animals
made of wood, stone and other materials". The prisoners watch the
shadows cast by the men, not knowing they are shadows. There are also
echoes off the wall from the noise produced from the walkway.
Socrates suggests the prisoners would take the shadows to be real
things and the echoes to be real sounds, not just reflections of
reality, since they are all they had ever seen or heard. They would
praise as clever whoever could best guess which shadow would come
next, as someone who understood the nature of the world, and the whole
of their society would depend on the shadows on the wall.
Release from the cave
Socrates next introduces something new to this scenario. Suppose that
a prisoner is freed and permitted to stand up. If someone were to show
him the things that had cast the shadows, he would not recognize them
for what they were and could not name them; he would believe the
shadows on the wall to be more real than what he sees.
"Suppose further," Socrates says, "that the man was compelled to look
at the fire: wouldn't he be struck blind and try to turn his gaze back
toward the shadows, as toward what he can see clearly and hold to be
real? What if someone forcibly dragged such a man upward, out of the
cave: wouldn't the man be angry at the one doing this to him? And if
dragged all the way out into the sunlight, wouldn't he be distressed
and unable to see "even one of the things now said to be true," viz.
the shadows on the wall
After some time on the surface, however, Socrates suggests that the
freed prisoner would acclimate. He would see more and more things
around him, until he could look upon the Sun. He would understand that
the Sun is the "source of the seasons and the years, and is the
steward of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way
the cause of all those things he and his companions had been
seeing" (See also Plato's metaphor of the Sun, which occurs near the
end of The Republic,
Return to the cave
Socrates next asks Glaucon to consider the condition of this man.
"Wouldn't he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there,
and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them
pitiable? And wouldn't he disdain whatever honors, praises, and prizes
were awarded there to the ones who guessed best which shadows followed
which? Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn't he be rather bad at
their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? Wouldn't it be
said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and
that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow
able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release
and lead up, wouldn't they kill him?"
Remarks on the allegory
Socrates remarks that this allegory can be taken with what was said
before, viz. the metaphor of the Sun, and the divided line. In
particular, he likens
"the region revealed through sight" – the ordinary objects we see
around us – "to the prison home, and the light of the fire in it to
the power of the Sun. And in applying the going up and the seeing of
what's above to the soul's journey to the intelligible place, you not
mistake my expectation, since you desire to hear it. A god doubtless
knows if it happens to be true. At all events, this is the way the
phenomena look to me: in the region of the knowable the last thing to
be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of good; but
once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all
things of all that is right and beautiful – in the visible realm it
gives birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible realm,
itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence – and that the
man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see
it"
After "returning from divine contemplations to human evils", a man
"is graceless and looks quite ridiculous when – with his sight still
dim and before he has gotten sufficiently accustomed to the
surrounding darkness – he is compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to
contend about the shadows of justice or the representations of which
they are the shadows, and to dispute about the way these things are
understood by men who have never seen justice itself?"