Allegory of the Cave

(from the REPUBLIC by Plato)

This allegory is a must read for those who seek to understand how we as a general populace can gain control of a sane and just society....

Elementary levels of education occur, of course, more or less automatically in all human communities--by the learning of language and certain basic skills, for example. Plato takes that for granted. In his philosophy he is concerned with the more advanced forms of learning. In his famous "Allegory of the Cave" from Book VII of the Republic he depicts the broad stages of education through which a human being can pass. He depicts education in such a way that its stages can be seen as a process of human emancipation and self-realization. Socrates (here clearly the mouthpiece for Plato's own thoughts) lays out the Allegory of the Cave by reporting a conversation that he had had with one of Plato's brothers a few days earlier:

“Compare," I said, "the absence of education to the following scene. Imagine people who live in a big cave with an entrance that is open to the light. A number of people have been there since an early age, and they are chained in such a way that they can look only in one direction. Light comes from a fire that burns some way behind and above them. Between the fire and the prisoners is a raised footpath with a low wall--of the sort puppet players put up between themselves and their audience."
"I am imagining it," he said.
"Imagine further a number of men carrying along the wall all sorts of vessels that are raised above it, and figures of men and animals that are made of stone or wood or other materials. Some of the men who carry these things are talking, and others are silent."
"Strange figures, and strange prisoners!" he said.
"The prisoners are like us," I replied. "But now tell me, do you think that it would have been possible for these prisoners to see themselves, or to see each other? To see anything except the shadows cast on the wall of the cave by the fire?"
"Not if they hadn't moved their heads since their childhood."
"And wouldn't that also hold for the objects that were carried in front of the fire?"
"Naturally."
"And if they could talk to each other, and give names to what they saw, wouldn't they think they were naming real objects, instead of mere shadows?"
"Of course."
"And if the cave had an echo coming from the wall in front of the prisoners--don't you think that they would assume that it is the shadows that are talking?"
"They surely would," he said.
"Prisoners like that would believe that the mere shadows of things are real things, wouldn't they?"
"How could they not?"
"But now what would happen if these prisoners were liberated and thus relieved of their delusion? Take any one of them who is released from his chains and suddenly forced to stand up, turn his head, walk around, and look up at the fire. Clearly he will be in pain doing all this, and he will be unable to see clearly those things the shadows of which he saw earlier--because he will be blinded by the brightness of the light. What do you think he will say if he is told that what he had seen before was a mere illusion? And that what he was seeing now was real, and that his vision was now more truthful? And if someone pointed to the things being passed along the wall one by one, and asked him what they were, don't you think the ex-prisoner would be at a loss, and that he would believe that what he had seen before was more real than the things now pointed out to him?"
"A lot more real."
"And if he were made to look directly at the light, wouldn't he feel such great pain that he would turn back to those things which he could perceive clearly, and believe they were clearer than the new things that are shown to him?"
"No doubt he would."
"And if, furthermore, somebody dragged him by force up the rough and steep path to the entrance of the cave, and if that person didn't let go of him until he had dragged him out into the light of the sun, wouldn't the liberated prisoner be upset and quite angry? And after coming out into the light, wouldn't his eyes be so filled by the rays of the sun that he couldn't possibly perceive all of the things that we know to be real?"
"No doubt. For a while he wouldn't be able to see anything."
"He would have to get used to the light before he could perceive what exists outside the cave. At first it would be easier for him to see mere shadows, then the reflections of people or other objects in water, and only in the end the things themselves. Later he could go on and look at the things in the sky and the sky itself. And first he would see more easily the light of the stars and the moon by night, and then the sun by day in its full brightness."
"Naturally."
"So the last thing he would see is the sun as it is in itself--the real thing in its proper setting?"
"Necessarily."
"Eventually he would come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces the seasons and the years, and that it is the guardian of all things in the realm of the visible, and that in some way it is also the cause of all the things that he and his fellow prisoners had seen down in the cave."
"That's what he would conclude in the end."
"And after all that? Don't you think he would consider himself lucky on account of the changes, and that he would feel pity for his former fellow prisoners?"
"Certainly."
"And if there had been honors and prizes among the prisoners which they awarded to the person who was fastest at recognizing shadows as they passed by, and best at remembering the sequence in which they were usually carried past the fire, and therefore was the most capable of predicting which one would come next--do you think the liberated prisoner would want to win those prizes, and that he would be envious of those who were honored in this way, and therefore had authority among the other prisoners? Or would he share the attitude of Homer and greatly desire to 'be on the earth, the slave of another man, a man without land,' and suffer anything rather than share the same opinions and live the same life as these people in the cave?"
"I think he would prefer any kind of misery rather than live the life of the cave."
"And if an ex-prisoner were to go down again and take his old place, wouldn't the sudden change from sunlight to darkness prevent him from seeing anything?"
"Quite."
"And if he had to compete once more with these cave dwellers in judging the shadows while his vision was still dim, wouldn't he be laughed at by everyone else, and wouldn't they maintain that he had ruined his eyesight outside the cave, and that the enterprise of getting outside was therefore a waste of time? And if they had a chance to grab and kill the man who tried to liberate them and lead them out of the cave, wouldn't they do just that?"

In this allegory education is measured in terms of the sorts of things that people are able to perceive. At an early stage people will not see anything except shadows, and shadows for them will be reality. At the end of the educational process people will not only be able to see the things that cause the shadows (the puppets or statues) and the original models of these things (people and things outside the cave), but also the sun that makes all seeing possible. They will realize that shadows are less real than what they are shadows of, and that the puppets and statues in turn are less real than the originals outside the cave. People who have managed to leave the cave will have a comprehensive view of reality, and they will see how every kind of thing is related to every other kind.

There are four kinds of things in Plato's allegorical tale: (1) shadows, (2) puppets or statues, (3) the original objects of which the puppets or statues are imitations, and (4) the sun. These four kinds of things are the symbolic representations of the four kinds of entities that make up reality in Plato's philosophical view of the world. What are these four kinds of entities?

The shadows on the wall of the cave stand for the notions of things that people have in their minds, notions that are more or less closely related to the things that they are notions of. People may have a certain notion of what a rhinoceros is, for example, or an Egyptian temple, or who Socrates was. But there is often a considerable difference between such a notion and the real thing. People may be mistaken about any number of details concerning rhinos or Egyptian temples, and they may have gotten their notion of Socrates from Aristophanes' slanted portrait in "The Clouds" rather than from any familiarity with the real Socrates. There is often no incentive or opportunity to check one's notions against the real world, and thus many people may live their whole lives in the illusory world of their private, unexamined conceptions of things. Like the chained prisoners in Plato's Cave who think that shadows are real they are prisoners of their own closed minds.

The puppets or statues from which the shadows are cast stand for what ordinarily are called the "real things," that is, real rhinos, actual Egyptian temples, or Socrates as he was in real life. People who are free to compare the notions in their minds with the real things are still cave dwellers, but they are not chained anymore. They have reached the first level of their emancipation. They know that private notions or images in people's mind do not necessarily reflect reality, but could be the result of their own projections or other people's lies. These halfway liberated cave dwellers, in other words, are familiar with two kinds of thing: private notions in the mind, and things in the outside world. They have gained a certain degree of freedom because they are able to evaluate critically any possible discrepancy between people's notions of things and the things themselves.

Up to this point, however, any progress in education has taken place inside the cave. Even prisoners who are rid of their chains still find themselves in a realm of relative darkness. The most significant step in their emancipation still lies ahead: the difficult and demanding climb out of the cave. Only when they have made their way into the realm of daylight will the former prisoners encounter the next category of things: the original persons, animals, and other things after which the puppets and statues inside the cave are modeled.
While Plato thus described the emancipating value of education, he obviously was rather pessimistic with regard to its popularity. In the tale of the allegory great emphasis is placed on the hostility that people feel toward education and educated individuals. The ascent out of the cave and into the light is not easy, and it requires a willingness to undergo changes that most people would find too strange to contemplate, or too painful to endure. Not only do cave dwellers dislike leaving the cozy darkness to which they have grown accustomed, they also hate and mistrust those who have been outside and who have come back to suggest that as continuing cave dwellers they may be seriously deficient. Most people strongly dislike being told that they are ignorant. Possibly alluding to the fate of Socrates in his role as intellectual gadfly, Plato concludes the Allegory of the Cave with the merely rhetorical question whether the complacent troglodytes would not “grab and kill the man who attempts to free them and lead them up out of the cave.” In Plato’s estimate, they would always be ready to do just that.

The majority of people, in other words, are too attached to their narrow-minded ways, and too resentful of anyone who tries to shake them out of their complacency. They are not willing to seriously question their own situation and their basic assumptions. And that, according to Plato, is the ultimate reason why democracy is bound to fail. Plato thought that it is not in the nature of most people to exert themselves sufficiently in the pursuit of serious knowledge and self-understanding, or to muster the necessary energy and will to embark on the long march out of the cave of half-knowledge and ignorance. It will always be only a relatively small number of people in any given population who will be willing and able to develop their intellectual faculties to a point where they can grasp their own limitations, and see what would be necessary to organize human society on a comprehensive scale and for the benefit of all.

The majority of people in any sizable polity have rarely been in control of their own destiny, and, according to Plato, they hardly ever will be. The masses will always put too much trust in their authorities, follow too readily their elected or unelected leaders, leave their serious thinking to their representatives, accept their inferior positions as natural, allow themselves to be exploited as long as it is not too crassly done, and--unless they are driven to the point of too extreme suffering--seek their happiness in little and private things. "Bread and circuses" was the formula that the imperial Romans used to pacify their masses—enough food to get by, and enough entertainment to distract their minds from their real situation. The combination of minimum amenities and non-stop entertainment by spectator sports and soap operas serves a similar function in modern societies. For a Platonist it would show a blatant disregard for human nature to expect anything else.