Republic 7 (514a-521b)

The Myth of the Cave

Contents:

• Introduction

• The Myth of the Cave  (514a-517a)

• The Cave, The Sun and The Line (517b-517c)

• The Turning  (517d)

• Nature vs Nurture  (518a 519a)

• Suggestions for Further Reading

Introduction

• In an attempt to explain why philosopher’s should rule or guardians should be philosophers, Socrates attempts to show why the philosopher’s quest for knowledge of the Good itself demands the sacrifice of the greater good of a life of contemplation in favor of a lesser, more particular, political good of Just Rule. The evocative Myth of the Cave is a pictorial analogy designed to explain the sacrifice demanded of State leaders (and by analogy, the beneficence demanded of the wise and just rational part of an individual’s psyche).

The Myth of the Cave (514a-517a)

• Socrates likens those who are uneducated to people who from the time of their infancy have been chained hand and foot and forced to sit on benches staring at the back wall of a deep cave. Neck braces prevent them from seeing one another. Behind the captives is a parapet where people parade statues of men, animals, and artifacts of all kinds carved from stone or wood.

• When these bearers talk as they go by, it is the shadows of these replicas that seem to be talking. The captives try to predict which will appear next in what order; which are in more or less constant conjunction.

• Behind the statue bearers is a fire. The light from the fire casts the shadows of the moving statues onto to the back wall of the cave and the shadows are observed by the captives.

• These prisoners are like us, says Socrates, for their whole world of conscious experience is of the shadows of things rather than of the true things and yet they would claim that they know best what daily appears before their eyes.

• The captives discuss and name the things they experience.

• If one of the captives is released and forced to stand up and look at the bonfire, her eyes would sting painfully and she would flee back to the shadow world. If dragged up the steep upward way out of the cave and into the light of the sun, she would be dazzled and temporarily blinded. She would not be able to make out the sunlit clouds, meadows and streams of the world outside the cave. At first, she would look at the shadows of things and the reflections of things in water. But eventually her eyes would adjust, allowing her to gaze on the things themselves: nature, human society, the moon, the stars and finally the sun in the middle of the sky.

• The former captive would realize that the sun is the source of the seasons and the years (time?). The Sun is the "steward" of all things in the visible place. It directs and manages the natural world and it is the cause of all the things, not only in the world outside the cave, but also the bonfire, the statues and the shadows that she formally took to be the whole of reality.

• Comparing her life above to that lived before with her fellow prisoners she would consider herself happy and pity those she left behind. Any honors, praises or prizes the captives would bestow upon one another would be devalued by the escapee, who would much rather live without those accolades and live free and unsung in the sunlit upper region.

• Socrates ponders what would happen if the liberated one returned to the cave and took her seat among the captives. Unable to adjust her eyes to the dim light, she couldn’t enter into the chatter about the shadows; and her failure to form expected judgements or opinions about the shadows would make her laughable. And if she tries to explain her difficulties with the shadows by describing her escape from the cave and her experience of the world above, the other captives would conclude that such a trip was useless and vicious: useless because it ruins your ability to make practical judgements about shadows and vicious because getting the captives to doubt is socially disruptive. Any liberator who would try likewise to release them from their chains and lead them to the higher region would be killed if they could get their hands on such a one.

The Cave, The Sun and The Line (517b-517c)

• Socrates insists that the Myth of the Cave must be compared with the Analogy of the Sun and the Divided Line in Bk VI.

• The fire is likened to our earthly sun and the statues and puppets lit up by the fire are the objects of ordinary perception. The shadows on the walls are derivative copies mixed up with the imaginings of ordinary people as their opinions are manipulated and misled by government propagandists, poets, media merchants, Sophists and indoctrinating teachers.

• If the cave represents the lower region of the divided line (World of Opinion) then outside the cave represents the World of the Forms, the intelligible World. The Forms have real being as opposed to perceived material particulars and the Highest Form (represented by the Sun) is the Idea of Goodness Itself.

• Just as the Sun above is the source and cause of all visible things (all the way down to the shadows), so too the cause of all that is right and fair is Goodness Itself. It provides truth and intelligence to all the Forms and to all the particulars that participate in the Forms.

• Commentators are left to speculate about the region of Mathematical entities. Are they symbolized by the statues and puppets  used to represent real natural things to the captives? Are they found in the arduous climb out of the cave, symbolizing their intermediate role between opinion and the knowledge of pure conceptual formality outside the cave? Are they the shadows and reflections seen outside the cave just before the liberated one grasps the pure Species Forms and higher Forms of Justice, Moderation, Courage, Wisdom and above all Goodness?

• Socrates suggest that the Myth of the Cave is not only to be conceived as a political contrast between unjust, rancorous States and the Ideal State, but primarily as the journey of the soul from childhood ignorance, through education, to knowledge and the happiness(eudaimonia) that comes from fulfilling the desire of the Rational psyche for Wisdom through apprehension of the Forms. (Of course, it is only the special education accorded the Auxiliary Guardian that provides the possibility of obtaining wisdom and eudaimonia.)

The Turning  (517d)

• The development of lovers of opinion into lovers of wisdom:

  • Once out of the cave, seeing the real things and becoming enlightened about the Forms and grasping Goodness Itself, the liberated one would never want to return to the Cave. This is in keeping with what was claimed in Book I, against Thrasymachus, that the best Rulers are those who are most reluctant to rule.

  • In leisure, soaking in the sun at the beach and watching the clouds drift by and the waves roll in, we’re often reluctant to return to the grind of our work. Not only philosophers, but every academician prefers reveling in their subject matter rather than making practical applications or attending committee meetings. Here is a great paradox of the Republic: just at the moment of Beatitude or Nirvana, when the lover of wisdom has in her arms the object of her deepest longing, she must sacrifice it to return to the cave and its shadows. The philosopher must become a warrior and then a ruler over citizens who prefer their familiar chains and ignorance.

  • It is a lot easier for tyrants operating behind a wall of respectability (as though they held the Ring of Gyges) to rule over the oppressed by keeping them amused with shows and propaganda (the shadow show) than any claim the philosopher makes to rule.

  • If a person raised in popular prejudices, opinion, crass materialism and crude pleasure turns from this darkness into the light of conceptual understanding, then they will be painfully dazzled and will have difficulty adjusting. Equally the person who is thrust from intellectual enlightenment into the darkness of practical matters and popular culture will also find it difficult to adjust. One who is unaware or unable to kibitz about the usual prejudices will seem like a fool to the uneducated person.

Nature vs Nurture  (518a 519a)

• The capacity for enlightenment is in the soul of each captive. Education is not a matter of native ability but of a turning that is a choice of objects to focus on, either shadows or sunlight, opinions or knowledge, from material particulars or Ideal Forms, from generating things to eternally actual things.

• It is important to note that Plato doesn’t pity the uneducated because they are, by nature, incapable of knowledge or wisdom. Their souls have the capacity for eudaimonia (full human flourishing). But not every person has the opportunity or willingness to turn from ignorant opinion and popular prejudice to take the arduous educational climb out of the cave to the light of the true and the good. Many have commented that there is an air of contempt on the part of Plato’s Socrates for the uneducated, but his target seems to be those who claim that those uninformed opinions are to be promoted as true or are the equal of truth or at least are valuable tools in the arsenal of panderers for promoting their own selfish advantage. Many who today decry the crass commercialization of the holidays, the use of sex and violence on TV, movies or advertisements, the tabloid sensationalism of the news, the perpetuation of popular prejudice, have no trouble distinguishing between their contempt of such views with their respect for the intrinsic worth of those who hold them. Whether Plato always managed that distinction is an interesting question.

The Sacrifice Explained  (519a - 521b)

• Some who exercise their reason and who awake from the delusion of the shadow world of popular opinion still have their souls turned to the lower levels of pleasure and material sensuality. They cannot fully detach themselves and ascend to the full light of the cerebral heavens. They turn to lives of vice and tyranny. Here Plato may be referring the tyrants who perform the shadow show from behind the scene. It should be noted that regardless of the amusement they enjoy by oppressing and controlling others, they spend their entire lives in the caves along with the captives.

• As the sun is the steward of the stars and planets, so too the philosopher Kings and Queens will be ideal stewards of the City. They see the fine and the good in everything they see or do, because the source of everything fine and good is Goodness Itself. Non-philosophers are not fit to rule because they have no vision of the Common Good, but only of a multitude of particular goods. Thus, for example, one who seeks wealth rules in the interest of the wealthy to the detriment of other classes and to the threatened neighboring City States. Something similar is in store when ambitious rulers seek pleasure, fame or glory. Those eager to rule in the mistaken belief that they can obtain some precious material value for themselves are more likely to stir up factions and fracture the City.

• Philosophers, however, who are only philosophers are not fit to rule because they are mesmerized by their meditations and revelations.

• But the enlightened ones must be compelled to take over the stewardship of the City. They reluctantly but willingly do so because:

  • They have a Vision of a Transcendent Good

  • They recognize a Good for All beyond what benefits them individually

  • Part of the Good they love is Justice for all and thus they develop a sense of duty to achieve justice in the City.

• This public burden is not an injustice to the philosopher king or queen because, having seen the goodness of cosmic order, they see that their own good is bound up with a harmonious city. For the sake of harmony, the citizens sacrifice some of their material aspirations for lawful order in the City. For the same reason the Rulers pass up the time they desire for intellectual pursuits to manage the affairs of the City. One’s highest Good is bound up with a Universal Good for All. Thus the Best City is ruled by those least eager to rule.

    Suggestions for Further Reading 

• Annas, Julia. An Introduction to Plato's Republic. New York: Oxford, 1981. [16-58] 

• Bernadete, Seth. Socrates' Second Sailing: On Plato's Republic. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1989. [9-32]. 

• Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato. New York: Harper Collins, 1968. [310-337] 

• Irwin, Terence. Plato's Ethics. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. [169-180] 

• Lycos, K. Plato on Justice and Power. Alabany: State University of New York, 1987. 

• Pappas, Nickolas. Plato and the Republic. New York: Routledge, 1995. [27-50] 

• Reeve, C.D.C. Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1988. [3-42] 

• Sallis, John. Being and Logos: Reading Platonic Dialogues. 3rd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1996. 
  [312-346] 

• Taylor, A.E. Plato: The Man and His Work. New York: Meridian, 1964. [265-270] 

• White, Nicholas P. A Companion to Plato's Republic. Indianapolis, Hackett, 1979. [61-73]

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