PLATO - The Allegory of the Cave

 

 

  

PLATO

 

The Allegory of the Cave,

 

 

P 1-14:

 

Imagine prisoners living since childhood in an underground den, chained so they cannot move or see anywhere but straight ahead. Behind them is a fire that casts shadows on the cave wall in front of the prisoners as people carry various objects past the fire. The prisoners, seeing nothing but shadows, assume the shadows are all there is to reality.

 

 

P 15-18:          

 

If a prisoner were released and toward the light, he would not immediately be able to see the objects whose shadows he formerly watched. Nor would he believe that these objects are more real than the shadows but would cling to his old idea of reality.

 

 

P 19-26:          

 

If the prisoner were taken out of the cave, he would be still more blinded by the sun’s light. At first he would see shadows and reflections most easily, then objects, the heavens, and at last the sun, which he would reason about and deduce to be a sort of god of the visual world.

 

 

P 27-34:          

 

Remembering his old life in the cave, the prisoner would pity his companions and rejoice in his own good fortune. Their contests at shadow watching and prediction, with honor and glory attached to winning, now would seem not enviable but repellent. But if he were taken back to the cave and forced to rejoin the contests before his eyes got used to the dark his fellow prisoners would pity his blindness and keep any others from leaving the cave.

 

 

P 35-40:          

 

The cave is the world of sight, the firelight is the sun, and the journey upward is the soul’s ascent into the intellectual world. The sun is the idea of good, author of all things beautiful and right, the power on which men who would act rationally must fix. Those who reach this upper world dislike returning to the cave, where they are forced to argue about justice with people who have never seen it.

 

 

P 41-52:          

 

The eye can be blinded by either abrupt light or abrupt darkness, but sight cannot be put into blind eyes. Rather, the soul must turn from darkness to light to use its capacity for perception of the good. A clever rogue might have been a wise and good man if his soul had been cut off in youth from sensual pleasures that lowered its vision.

 

 

P 53-62:          

 

In the ideal republic, neither the uneducated nor those who never end their education will make able ministers of state. The founders of the state will compel its best minds to attain the good and then to descend again for the benefit of the state. The rulers of this state will be philosophers, enlightened and uninterested in fighting for power. The state rulers are most reluctant to govern is governed best.

 

 

P 63-65:          

 

These philosopher-rulers will take office as a stern necessity. The political arena must offer them better rewards than power and wealth, so that those rich in virtue and wisdom will be willing to hold office.