Plato's Cave

Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog!! It is currently Saturday the 22nd of February, 3:14am. Don't ask me why I'm up so late because honestly, I wish I could sleep right now. I had a lacrosse tournament today which we didn't do too bad in. I got player of the tournament which I was super surprised about because I got player of the tournament earlier in the season during counties. The reason I was surprised was because I am a goalkeeper and in all my 6 years of playing lacrosse, there have been rare occasions where I have seen goalies win MVP and also, I don't think I played very well today. I feel like I have lost a lot of confidence in my playing to the point I overthink throwing the ball. Basically, I am absolutely knackered and cannot sleep, so I thought, why not write about a thesis that the dude who opened up the first university in the world?

What is Plato's Cave?

Plato was a classical Greek philosopher and was Socrates' student (although Socrates never considered himself a teacher). Plato's Cave is an allegory that he came up with when reflecting on the truth about human nature and knowledge. It is written in one of his most famous books, The Republic.

The story goes somewhat like this:

There were some men (3 I think?) who were held as prisoners in a cave since the day they were born. They were chained up and they had never seen the outside world. The guards of the prison had lit a fire behind them and would basically show the olden day equivalent of shadow puppets. Since the prisoners had never seen the outside world, they thought there was nothing else to life except the darkness of the cave. They believed that the shadow animals were real animals and that the fire behind them was the sun. One day, one of the prisoners escaped into the outside world and got blinded by the real sun. Eventually he got used to it and started wandering around. He saw real animals and real fields and was quite understandably shocked. He went back to the darkness of the cave and tried to explain to the other prisoners that what they are seeing is not real and there is so much more to the world than the shadows they were seeing. The other prisoners were infuriated because they thought he was lying. They even threatened to kill him. They thought he was lying because his eyes were accustomed to the sunlight and he found it difficult to see in the darkness of the cave. This essentially meant that the chained prisoners thought they'd be harmed if they left the cave.

What Does it Represent?

The cave represents the people who are trapped due to believing that all knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world. This is called empirical evidence. The cave shows that people who believe all knowledge comes from our senses are trapped in a cave of misunderstanding.

The shadows represent the perception of those who believe that empirical evidence ensures knowledge. Essentially, if you believe what you see should be taken as truth, then you are seeing a shadow of the truth, not the actuality of the truth.

The prisoner that escapes represents the philosopher who seeks knowledge outside the cave and the senses. The sun represents the ultimate philosophical truth and knowledge.

His intellectual journey reflects the journey that philosophers take when seeking truth and wisdom.

The reactions of the prisoners when they find out the truths of the escapee prisoner represents the reactions of those who are scared of knowing philosophical truths and do not trust philosophers.

Theory of Forms

Plato also uses the allegory of the cave to support his “theory of forms”. His theory of forms is also spoken about in his book, The Republic.

Plato believes we live in a world of appearances but the real world is a world of ideas he calls forms. 

A form is an idea about what a thing is. For example, when we think of trees, we think of branches and leaves, this means there must be an “ideal” tree of some sort in the realm of forms.

Simplified versions of the questions he would ask were “what does it mean to be a tree or an animal? He believes that the world of forms holds the true form of everything in our world.

Plato wasn’t really interested in trees or animals but more concepts such a s truth, justice, beauty and the good.

This fits in with the allegory of the cave as the trapped prisoners represent the regular people who can only see the shadows of the true forms. The escaped prisoner represents the philosopher who i trying to reach the world of forms. The outside world represents the world of forms when the true forms of aesthetics and beauty lies. Lastly, the sun represents the form of good as it is the source of all other forms.

There is also another way you can link the theory of forms with the allegory of the cave and it is also to do with epistemology. 

You could interpret it in a sense that the cave is the real world and the prisoners are our souls. Our souls are being prevented in telling us the ultimate truth of life because of the distractions of day to day life. The outside world represents the realm of forms and basically, our soul already has all the information that is held in the realm of forms. We already know all of the knowledge in the world as our soul has lived before us and will continue to live after us.

Plato is a mind body dualist which means he believes that the soul/mind (undifferentiated in Western philosophy) is separate to the physical body, therefore, he believes in reincarnation.

When we die, our soul reaches the realm of forms which means our soul already has full understanding of the world around us. The same soul will then be brought back into the “cave” which means that our physical body and brain is what restricts us from knowing the true meanings of life. Things we are taught externally, social media, any sort of distraction from asking yourself the bigger questions in life is what restricts you from unlocking all of the knowledge within you. Our soul has already experienced everything and will go on to experience it again and again until one philosophises their life.

I went a bit off track but at the same time, I could’ve written so much more about this topic. I feel like that’s the thing with philosophy, there’s always something to say. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this post, it is currently 4:17am and I am about to drop dead so if any of this doesn’t make sense, blame it on the sleep deprivation, see you next week, love you guys <33