Plato

Allegory of The Cave:

Except from The
Republic
 Plato

• 427(?) - 348 BCE

• Lived about 200 years
after Pythagoras.
• “Plato” means
“the broad” –
possibly his
nickname.
• Son of a wealthy
Athens family.
• Served in the Athens
army during the
Peloponnesian War.

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 Plato and Socrates

Plato was Socrates student.

Almost all we know about

Socrates is from Plato’s
writings.

After Socrates execution for

corrupting the young and
neglecting the gods, Plato
• In Italy, Plato met the
left Athens in disgust and
travelled widely.
Pythagoreans.
 The Academy

In (ca.) 387 BCE, Plato returned to Athens and

established a school for philosophy, built in a
grove dedicated to the famous hero Academos.

The Academy continued until it was closed in

529 CE, over 900 years.
Pre-eminence of Mathematics
Though planned as a school
for future statesmen, Plato
had become convinced that
the road to knowledge lay
in exact reasoning, as in
mathematics.

Let no one who

The famous inscription over does not know
the entrance read: geometry enter
here.
 Plato Dialogues
Plato’s works span
approximately 30
“dialogues” – dramatic
conversations with
statesmen, citizens, and
other recognizable names
from Plato’s time and
earlier.

• It is hard to tell what are just

Socrates is the main
interlocutor. Socrates’ own views and
what is just Plato’s voice.
Most of Plato’s writings
are not about nature,
but his concepts of
reality and knowledge
have had a profound
impact.

These are characterized

by two well-known
passages from his
dialogue, The Republic.

Goal to help people reach Plato had 4 big ideas

Eudemonia •Think more refute DOXA
•Achieve happiness •Role of feelings being dangerously
Plato dragged by wild horses.
•Socratic discussion:
•Try to find answers
DECODE THE • WHY DO we like beauty?
• They are leading us to the creation of ‘good life’
MESSAGE • Look for peace, strength, harmony (help educate our
souls)
OF BEAUTY

• We need to be careful of how we admire

REFORM • He wanted people to be ‘guardians’
• Modesty, simple habits
SOCIETY • He wasn’t a fan of Democracy
 The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and
intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek
cities in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. In
return for a fee, the sophists offered young wealthy
Greek men an education in aretē (virtue or excellence),
thereby attaining wealth and fame while also arousing
significant antipathy.

Prior to the fifth century B.C.E., aretē was

predominately associated with aristocratic warrior
virtues such as courage and physical strength. In
democratic Athens of the latter fifth century B.C.E.,
however, aretē was increasingly understood in terms of
the ability to influence one’s fellow citizens in political
gatherings through rhetorical persuasion; the sophistic
education both grew out of and exploited this shift.
 Inside the Cave

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTWwY8Ok5I0
 The Allegory of the Cave

• Also in The Republic, Plato explains the route to knowledge

and the responsibilities of philosophers through an allegory
about prisoners in a cave.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 2

• Imagine a cave in which prisoners are chained and

seated so that they all face one way, toward a wall.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 3

• The prisoners have been there all their lives and

know nothing of the outside world.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 4

• All that the prisoners see are the shadows cast on

the wall before them.
– This is the lowest segment of the Divided Line.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 5

• Behind the prisoners is a fire, which they cannot

see, that casts the shadows on the wall before them.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 6

• Between the fire and the prisoners is a parapet, or walkway,

where people are crossing back and forth with strange objects
held above their heads.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 7

• Everything the prisoners see or hear is bounced off

the wall. They therefore think of that as the true
reality.

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 The Allegory of the Cave, 8
• Now, suppose one of the prisoners is unshackled and led
away, up out of the cave and into the world outside.
• The prisoner will probably object and when outside, will be
blinded by the light.
• But in time the released prisoner will realize that it is the
world outside that is real and the world in the cave only
one of illusion.
 The Allegory of the Cave, 9

• If then the prisoner is led back down into the cave and placed
in his original position, the other prisoners would mock him if
he told them of the world outside and think him a fool. And
they would object to anyone else being led away.

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The Allegory of the Cave, 10

• “…the prison-house is the world

From The of sight, the light of the fire is the

sun, and … the journey upwards
[is] the ascent of the soul into

Republic: the intellectual world….”

• Complete text in Glimpses of
Reality, chapter 5.
 The Allegory of the Cave, 11

The prisoner who is released and

attains a full understanding of what is
real (the philosopher), has a
responsibility to return to the cave
and instruct others in what is real, so
that they too may escape into the
world of truth.
Plato’s Cave (c)

Plato argued that

our sight reveals OR everything
the world of we experience in
shadows, but as the world is a
we ascend into vague shadow of
the upper world, what it really is
we will see the in its true Form. The Form of the
true reality. Good is
responsible for
Ultimately we will whatever is right &
see the Form of valuable in
the Good. anything. It is
perfect beauty,
justice and
goodness.
Plato’s Cave (d)
expression of
something that we
only see in shadow.

Epistemology = true
knowledge.

True knowledge
cannot come from our
senses because we
can’t trust our senses.

True knowledge can only

The Form is the
come from thinking and
perfect reasoning.
Plato’s Cave (e)

Most people are

imprisoned by their
misperception that
what our senses reveal
to us is the true world.

The cave is the world

as we see it, a
distortion of the truth.
It is distorted by our
refusal to pursue the When those who have seen the truth return
to persuade others, they are treated as fools
journey to truth due to our limited perceptions – based on our
through philosophy. senses.
 Plato’s Cave for the
modern audience

This YouTube clip shows the moment when the

character Neo is presented with a choice – much
as the prisoners in Plato’s cave. Does he want to
remain in ignorance – or see ‘reality’ as it really
is?

• The Matrix is a programme

which fools our senses into
believing that what our senses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7PKRjrid4

tells us is reality.
 Plato’s FORMS

Plato believed that Most people are

true reality existed imprisoned by
beyond our their
normal misperception that
perceptions of the the shadows are
world. the true world.
What we see around us is just
a shadow of the truth. This
‘other world’ was inhabited by The Forms are invisible to us.
the one and only, original and
perfect example.
Plato’s FORMS
 Forms – the absolute
and perfect things like
goodness and beauty –
could not have made
such a distorted world.

Plato believed in a
demiurge (creator
God).

Forms only seemed

accessible to educated
philosophers. Ordinary
people were cut off
from the truth.

Because Forms exist

beyond our physical
world they cannot be Plato relies heavily on human mental
proved empirically. ability to escape the shadows and
confines of our limited perceptions.
 Body / Soul distinction

Humans remember things from

Plato believed that the soul a previous life before that of
existed before the body. the body, such as our ability to
recognise goodness and beauty.
Before taking
After death,
on the body,
the soul
the soul
leaves the The soul is
existed and
body and closer to the
was aware of
lives on in a Forms.
the Forms, or
cycle of life
pure
and death.
essences.
 Plato thought that
philosopher’s souls
lived on in a state of
wisdom.

True philosophers Those people who

should strive to were primarily
separate the mind concerned with
and be unhindered bodily demands
by bodily were reborn as
distractions. lower creatures.
The body’s need
for things means
that we have no
time for
philosophy. Plato’s separation of the soul goes
against the holistic view that the
‘self’ is made from both our
physical and spiritual elements.
Plato said that we
needed to be
liberated from
bodily needs to In
contemplate
things with our
souls. This is the
journey from the
cave.

Plato is negative
about the body.
 The Duty of the Philosopher

For Plato, the philosopher has a duty to

enlighten the uneducated.

Compare this to the Pythagoreans, who

sought to prevent any special knowledge
they had from escaping from their cult.
Level one: guided by images, stories
guesses, opinions

Level two: guided by practical

common sense, trial and error
approach, practical

Level three: a theoretical, scientific

approach seeking to understand why
things are as they are

Level four: philosophical approach,

by which theories are themselves
evaluated. True understanding
People in the cave spend their time playing games and identifying the
shadows on the wall. They think that the shadows on the wall are the real
things. They are happy to win prizes in the cave for being so quick and
accurate at identifying the shadows. They do not know that those are just
shadows (I) caused by the light crossing over the statues (II) which are
themselves representations of the things outside the cave (III) and all of
those would not exist if not for the source of all things and all life, the sun
(IV) .
 Plato’s prediction
Democracy changes to Tyranny
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnzo9qXLFUo