The Allegory of the Cave From Book 7 of the Republic
The Cave as Allegory The story of the cave is an allegory for educa&on. The story make[s] an image of our nature in its educa?on and want of educa?on (514a). The stages in the story of the persons in the cave correspond to stages in their learning about the nature of reality.
Cave Posi?ons Persons are in the rear of the cave, bound, and can only see shadows. Persons are then unbound, turned toward the fire at the cave opening, and can see the figures projec&ng shadows. Persons are then dragged out of of the cave. They are dazzled by the sunlight and can only first see shadows. But then is able to see things themselves and the heavens. Persons can then perceive the Sun itself.
Allegory for What? The cave represents the sensible or visible world, the common- sense world we all live in, while what is grasped outside the cave, especially the Sun, represent the invisible world of the mind the world of abstract principles and forms. Liken the domain revealed through sight to the prison home, and the light of the fire in it to the sun s power; and the going up and the seeing of what s above to the souls journey up to the intelligible place (517b).
The Visible and Invisible World The visible world is the spa?al and temporal world in which things come to be and pass away. Here things can be other than then currently are they change. The invisible world is the world of things that cannot be other than they are because they do not change. While empirical triangles come to be and pass away, triangle- ness does not come to be or pass away. While par?cular instances of virtue come to be and pass away, what virtue is, its defini?on, does not come to be or pass away. To really explain the visible world we must use terms that come from the invisible world.
Example of a Triangle Image: A triangle discussed in a story Visible thing: A par?cular triangle that you see Lower form: The defini?on of a triangle (plane figure with three angles and three sides). This gives the formula or form for all triangles, allowing one to recognize all instances of triangle as triangles.
Example of a Triangle Con?nued Higher forms: What must one already grasp to understand what a triangle is? One must already grasp plane, three, angle side. These forms are therefore higher (more basic) forms than triangle. What one must already understand to grasp these forms? Something very abstract: perhaps existence or being. These are even higher forms. One can go even higher, ge_ng to the Form of the Good, the cause of all those things [we have] been seeing (516c). Philosophical Chris?ans might call this God.
Order of Learning When we move leb to right on the chart we learn to explain the nature of par?cular things in terms of invisible forms and principles that are abstract and universal. When we learn a topic, any topic, we move from grasping the par?cular to grasping the universal, to grasping a things form and the rela?on of that form to other forms.
Ontology As we come to explain and understand things in terms of a system of abstract principles and forms, we come to becer understand what something is. We get closer to its true being, to its whatness or essence.
3 Ques?ons What is Plato trying to indicate by saying that persons must be dragged against their will out of the cave (515a)? What does Plato mean by saying that when we go out of the cave that we cannot yet see, but must adjust to the light? What is Plato trying to indicate by saying that if someone who leb the cave were to go back down into it that their vision would be dim, and they would be laughed at and perhaps even killed by those in the cave (517a).
Ramifica?ons for Educa?on If educa?on is ascending from images and things to a knowledge of forms, then: educa?on is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be. They presumably assert that they put into the soul knowledge that isn t there but the present argument indicates that this power is in the soul of each, and that the instrument with which each learns must be turned around from that which is coming into being un?l it is able to endure looking at that which is, and the brightest part of that which is. And we affirm that this is the good (518c).
What Educa?on Is Educa?on is therefore an art of this turning around, concerned with the way in which this power can most easily and efficiently be turned around, not the art of producing site in it. Rather, this art takes as given that sight is there, but not rightly turned nor looking at what it ought to look at, and accomplishes this object (518d).