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The Analogy of the Cave

In Plato’s Republic , he illustrates his ideas about human knowledge in relation to reality and so explains the Theory of the Forms.

Plato’s allegory of the Cave tells us to imagine a dark, large cave, connected to the outside world by a long passage. In the cave, with their backs to the entrance, is a row of prisoners, with their hands tied down, unable to move.

Behind them is a bright fire. People move to and fro, behind them, all day, so that their shadows are projected onto the wall of the cave and voices are echoed. Plato says that all the prisoners ever perceive or experience in their reality are the shadows and their echoes. It would seem reasonable for them to assume that the shadows and echoes constituted all of reality.

One day, a prisoner is released and he turns round. His movement is painful and the light of the fire dazzles his eyes. He finds himself confused and would want to turn back to the wall, to the reality that he understood.

If he was dragged out of the cave altogether, the sun light would blind him and he would be bewildered. Eventually, he would start to understand this upper world. If he were to return to the cave, he would again be blinded, this time by the darkness. Anything he said to the prisoners about his experiences outside the cave would be unintelligible to them, who only know of the shadows and echoes. In fact, the prisoners who had never seen the upper world would be hostile towards the returning prisoner, not understanding anything but the shadows.

• The Cave: The visible world, our universe. The cave creates a sense of being trapped in a different world, away from light and away from reality.

• 'The shadows on the wall': What we perceive as our whole reality, i.e. all our empirical knowledge

• The Prisoners: The rest of humanity, who are unable to understand the words of men who are enlightened.

• People outside the cave: These people represent real life or reality. Plato understands reality as the eternal and immutable world (true reality) of Ideas, which contain the perfect Forms.

• the Journey Out: The struggle for knowledge and the battle against bodily desires. Through philosophical understanding, people are able to see the real world of concepts or Forms and draw conclusions from it, which are true.

• The Sun: Enlightenment or the perfect Form of the Good; a knowledge of true, essential goodness allows the soul (the eye) to gain real understanding

Theory of the Forms

Plato used the analogy of the cave to demonstrate his Theory of Forms and is the basis of Plato’s epistemology (theory of knowledge). The world of Forms is the world of Ideas. It is more real than the sensory world of appearances.

There is a difference between the ONE and the MANY. The ONE is the true reality (Form), the MANY are imperfect replicas that we see around us. We access knowledge of the Forms through intellectual reasoning.

The Forms are interconnected and arranged as a hierarchy. The most important form is the form of the good. Like the sun it illuminates other forms. Abstract concepts, such as Beauty and Justice have a Form, as well as concrete things like chairs and beds. The Forms are eternal, perfect, invisible and unchangeable.

Plato on the Body and Soul

Plato’s 3 main ideas on the body and soul:

• Dualism – the theory that the body and mind exist separate from each other but linked in some way
• Materialism – the theory that our minds are inseparable from our bodies
• Idealism– the theory that our bodies are unreal, and an illusion – our minds are the only reality

According to Platonic thought we have a body and receive sense experience and an immaterial mind which is capable of knowing eternal truths beyond this world. Each person has a directing force called the soul which is guided by the body which wants to be involved in worldly matters and the mind wants to travel into the heavenly realms of ideas and to understand them. The soul is trapped between these two opposing forces. It tries to steer but is trapped in the prison of the body.

Theory of Recollection

This is where the soul existed before our birth in the realm of the forms. it recollects these forms during our life time and is striving to return to them. We can help the soul to recollect the forms by ignoring the earthly matter. We do this by concentrating on philosophical reflection and reason, freeing ourselves from sensory enslavement.

Comments

This can be used for students who are studying religious studies especially the OCR philosophy and ethics Religious Studies sylabus

This was created by Chrisateen