Major Trends: The Allegory Of The Cave (The Republic)

The Allegory Of The Cave (The Republic)

• Two thousand four hundred years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher and thinker Plato said that we are watching the shadows on the wall of the cave, in which we are imprisoned. It sounds ominous, but what did Plato really mean by this?

In the allegory described by Plato, several prisoners are locked in a cave from the day they were born and they do not know anything about the world that is outside its walls. All prisoners are chained and sit with their backs to the entrance, unable to turn around. The flames of the bonfire behind them lightly illuminate the space inside the cave. From time to time, animals run past the cave and people pass, from which shadows appear on the cave's wall.

The prisoners watch with curiosity the dancing of the shadows on the wall and try to name them; come up with names, they believe that these are real things.

Suddenly, one of the people imprisoned in the cave regains freedom and leaves the cave for the first time. He is blinded by the bright light of the Sun and he is in deep confusion, finding himself in a new, unusual environment for him. And when other people tell him that in fact this is reality, and the shadows observed by the prisoners are only a reflection of reality, then he cannot believe it. After all, the shadows for him were much more real.

When the eyes of a prisoner get used to the light of the sun, he first begins to distinguish glare and reflections on the water, then the objects surrounding the world, and finally sees the Sun itself, which illuminates everything that is in front of his eyes. After some time, amazed by what he saw, the prisoner comes back to the cave in order to tell about his amazing discovery. Now that his eyes are accustomed to the bright light, he can barely make out the shadows on the walls, which seemed to him to be real objects. The rest of the prisoners believe that he lost his sight outside their cave and in every possible way resist his attempts to free them in order to leave the cave, fearing to be blind.

What did Plato want to say to all of these?

Using the example of the history of the prisoners in the cave, Plato tried to convey to society what difficulties scientists and philosophers face when trying to enlighten people.

After all, most of people are comfortable living in ignorance and are greeted with aggression by those who strive to give them new knowledge. So in Athens, the court sentenced Socrates to death for the fact that he did not honor the gods who were worshiped by the inhabitants of Athens. As a disciple of Socrates, in the "State" Plato criticized Athenian democracy and in every possible way promoted the idea of ​​the rule of philosophers.

In the allegory of the cave, Plato draws attention to the fact that the mass of people is excessively stubborn and stupid in order to be ruled by itself. But this metaphor has been stirring the minds of people for many centuries. It can be interpreted in completely different ways, it is also important that this metaphor has a connection with the theory of forms, which Plato described in his other works. According to her, all the objects that we see are like shadows on the walls of a cave, they are just reflections of perfect forms that exist only in an ideal world that is inaccessible to our understanding.

In this way, the allegory of the cave brings us closer to other very important questions about the nature of the reality around us, the emergence of knowledge, the problems of cognition ...

So can we know that objects outside our cave are more real than the shadows on its walls? How can we be confident in our knowledge? Comment down below !!!!

*Stay curious* 

(أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ كَيْفَ مَدَّ الظِّلَّ وَلَوْ شَاءَ لَجَعَلَهُ سَاكِنًا ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَا الشَّمْسَ عَلَيْهِ دَلِيلًا)