PLATO'S CAVE

Ok, so I have been doing some study on a lot of things, and recently what has really been "speaking" to me is the Allegory of the Cave (book 7 of Republic). I have read, and re-read, done cross reference searches, looked at the multi-faceted debates on the story, and am just in awe I guess. Something I have read many times before and only now I have been able to really take it in! It just came to me after a converation with Joe and Aidan at dinner last night, just the mention of The Republic brought me back to a concept of Philosophy dating back over 2000 years, and one I had almost forgotten about.

The Cave....chained up and shackled to the wall seeing only yours and the others around you shadows. That's all they know of reality, that is their reality. The prisoners representing "ordinary people" thriving in a world riddled with illusion. The Cave representing "the realm of becoming". The prisoner unchained and mobile around the cave gains the most accurate view of reality within the ever-changing world of experience and perception, he sees what the shadows actually are....Then there is the world outside the Cave that, in contrast, represents "the realm of being". Here in this layer of the Allegory is where the ultimate truth is in interpretive based on the objects of knowledge. The objects related here being the perfect, unchanging, and ultimately eternal...

SO, according to the influences I am reading it would be correct in saying that "in Plato's view, what is known must not only be true but also perfect and unchanging". The thing with this is nothing inside the Cave (aka the empirical world) supports this. So since nothing in the Cave is an object of knowledge, the other realm is then proposed (the outside). It is there where the perfect and unchanging entities are brought into play referred to as "Forms" or rather ideas. This then spells out the hierarchy among Forms that the Sun is representing the "Form of Good", which gives all the other forms their ultimate meaning of existence.

So that being said, my interpretation of it all is as follows, for years I lived inside the cave seeing only my shadows and the shadows of those around me as my ultimate truth, until I was set free of captivity and allowed to roam around seeing reality for what it really was, and is...So I found the path to enlightenment and walked outside and really got a glimpse into the true realm of perception and truth, well, so far as truth can be perceived.... I have taken to the joy of what I have been able to see and have walked back into the cave to share with my fellows; stumbling from the brightness of the truth and the darkness of what once was, being rejected and cast aside as if the outside, or the Good, spoiled me in some way... (The defense for Socrates comes into play here is this sense) But, such is the path of the narrow-minded, the ones who willingly chose to stay in the dark...not me, I thirst for the "Good"...

It just kind of sucks to usually go at it alone.



(Originally written November 2008)