Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave'

 Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave'

By Kristine Frederickson, Columnist Oct 4, 2009, 12:26am MDT

The Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428-347 BC), student of Socrates, helped to

lay the foundations of Western philosophy. His best known work, written

about 380 B.C., is the philosophical and political treatise,

The Republic, and includes the "Allegory of the Cave," that discusses the role of

learning in attaining a higher state of awareness and spiritual

consciousness. The full text of the allegory is widely available and I

recommend it to readers.

It is powerful in and of itself and points to the eternal. It also offers

insights into today's doubting, secular world. It emphasizes the

necessity of developing the spiritual side of our beings and holding to

belief in the face of mocking and derision by those who see believers

as deluded fools. The allegory elaborates the truth that the spiritual

world supersedes the temporal existence and when a person acknowledges

the spiritual a window is opened onto eternity.

Plato

begins by describing for his brother, Glaucon, a group of people who

have spent their entire lives in a cave. Their legs and necks are

chained so they cannot move and they face a blank wall with a fire

blazing behind and above them. The wall the prisoners see is like a

thin white screen behind which marionette players manipulate puppets.

These blurred shadows and the smothered echoes of words are the

prisoner's reality although they merely represent actual figures who

pass behind them in front of the sunlit entrance to the cave.

Plato

asks the question he seeks to answer, "Is a resident of the cave likely

to want to make the ascent to the outer world?" He asks if humans truly

seek light or are satisfied with life in the dark cave. He

hypothesizes, "Like ourselves...the (prisoners) see only their own

shadows, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave."

Then

he imagines the prisoner released from his bonds and turning to face

the light. When he "looks toward the light, he will suffer sharp pains;

the glare will distress him" and he will be unable to grasp the true

reality before him. Plato then asks, "conceive someone saying to him,

that what he saw (in the cave) was an illusion, but that now, when...his

eye is turned towards the real existence, he has a clearer

vision, —what will be his reply?" Won't he be perplexed and believe the

shadows are truer?

If

the former prisoner is then forced "up a steep and rugged ascent, and

held fast in...(the) presence of the sun, is he not likely to be pained

and irritated?" He will be so dazzled he won't be able to see anything

at all until "he grow(s) accustomed to the sight of the upper world."

Eventually however, "he will be able to see the sun, and not mere

reflections of him,...but he will see him in his own proper place...and he

will contemplate him as he is."

Once

the individual is exposed to the glorious metaphysical world he will no

longer be satisfied with the false reality of viewing shadows floating

on the wall of the cave. He "would rather suffer anything than

entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner." If

required to re-enter the cave to reside among men still consumed with

the shadows, and he shared what he had seen, the cave dwellers would

call him "ridiculous" or mad. If he tried to re-ascend or take another

with him "they would put him to death."

Plato

then explains the allegory. The cave is our "world of sight, the

light...and the journey upwards (is) the ascent of the soul into the

intellectual (and spiritual) world ...and is seen only with an effort;

and...(what we see) is the universal author of all things beautiful and

right, parent of light and of the lord of light."

Describing

those who reject or mock the divine Plato speaks of, "the evil state of

man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner." Of those who make the

effort to pursue the things of divinity he says, "You must not wonder

that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend

to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper

world where they desire to dwell."

He

concludes, "The power and capacity of learning exists in the soul

already. ...The instrument of knowledge can only, by the movement of the

whole soul, be turned from the world of becoming (this temporal world)

into that of being (the world of the divine), and learn by degrees to

endure the sight of being and of the brightest and best of being."

While many in today's world mock the things of the spirit this is, as

Plato attests, the true world of reality.

As

members of the church our quest — so eloquently described by Plato — must

be to avoid the "evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous

manner," to leave the world of shadows and make the steep ascent into

the light. Enduring the mockery of those that live in the darkened cave

we must ever "hasten into the upper world where we desire to dwell.”

The path to enlightenment is painful and arduous, says Plato, and requires that we make four stages in our development.

• Imprisonment in the cave (the imaginary world)
• Release from chains (the real, sensual world)
• Ascent out of the cave (the world of ideas)
• The way back to help our fellows.