Plato's Allegory of the Cave

The philosopher Plato discussed the Allegory of the Cave

In the Allegory of the Cave Plato likens those I call Rag, Tag & Bobtail to prisoners chained up in a cave, unable to turn their heads around. All they can see is the cave wall at the back. Behind them burns a fire.  Between the fire and the prisoners there is a kind of stage (or screen) along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. Now remember that Rag, Tag & Bobtail can’t see the puppets - the real objects - that pass behind them. What the prisoners see are shadows cast by objects outside of their field of vision.

Are you with me so far?

The prisoners, you see, those I call Rag, Tag & Bobtail (and I could explain why if you care to know), mistake appearances for reality. They imagine that the shadows they see on the wall are real, and they know nothing of the real causes of these shadows. Yeah, yeah, I know, they’d have to be soft in the head, but stay with me here because I’m going somewhere with this.

Now when Rag, Tag & Bobtail are chatting to each other, what are they talking about? If an object, a football for instance, is carried past behind them, it casts a shadow on the wall, and a prisoner says, “I see a football,” what is he talking about?

He thinks he is talking about a football, but in reality, he’s only talking about a shadow. However, he still uses the word “football.”

Plato claims that Rag, Tag & Bobtail wouldn’t know his arse from a hole in the ground, for he’d only be talking about shadows that pass before his eyes as opposed to the real thing that actually cast those shadows.

Now take the prisoners in the cave. If just one of them had enough ice in his veins to break loose of the chains and turn his head around, what would he see? He’d see the fire and the puppeteers marching back and forth before it. Only then would he realize that it’s the figures making the shadows, and everything he had learned about those shadows might not necessarily be true.

In other words, everything he previously believed to be true …. Was a lie!

Afterwards, he would have to persevere a little further and make his way outside of the cave. He’d then see sunlight and would imagine it to be the source of truth, as it’s the sun that gives light, allowing him to see. Before seeing the fire and sun, he’d have thought that light was simply lack of darkness (rather than darkness being lack of light). Once the Carefree Scamp, as that is what he has now become, has left the cave completely, he will see real objects in the sunlight; Forms in other words.

Cool, huh?

No longer stuck in a world of shadows, he’d understand things as they really are and would have full understanding of absolute truth. He’d want to stay outside in the sun for the rest of his life, but he’d also understand that he is obligated to return to the rest of the prisoners at the back of the cave to give them a bit of a boost.

However, if he tried to tell them what he’d seen outside the cave, they’d think he was nuts. They may even try and kill him, but if it’s possible to avoid that fate then he might succeed in becoming their leader. That way he’d be able to decide for himself what they should believe.

Any Christians reading this may feel that it’s starting to sound a little familiar.

So, we can now see that Plato believed there to be a difference between that which we perceive with our senses and that which we understand innately with our minds. Plato believed that those Carefree Scamps who understood what he called Forms (the Theory of Forms) could be rulers of any city or state.

Since, at a deep subliminal level, we may all have knowledge of Plato’s Theory of Forms, knowledge that we couldn’t possibly have obtained through any bodily experience, Plato argued that this knowledge must be a form of recollection and that our souls must have been acquainted with the Forms prior to our birth. And in that case, the existence of our mortal bodies cannot be essential to the existence of our souls - before birth or after death. Therefore, we are truly immortal!

How cool is that!

Copyright © Karl Wiggins