Today is the Allegory of the
Cave.What is a simile? A simile is a comparison using the words
"like" or "as."
What is a metaphor? A metaphor is a comparison not using the words
"like" or "as."
What is an allegory? An allegory is an extended metaphor.
In Plato's
Republic...
Imagine a big cave, and in this cave there are
prisoners who are tied to chairs with their heads also bound. Behind these prisoners is
a terrace. On this terrace people walk while carrying things on their heads. The things that
are being carried are like vases and trees and statues of people and other things
like trees. Like rocks, fishbowls, pixy sticks, whatever. Behind these people is a fire and
the fire casts shadows of what the people carry on their heads. The prisoners see the
shadows that are cast on the wall by thefire. These prisoners have always been in this
cave. Bob, a person who carries stuff on his head, usually carries a statue of a male on his
head. The prisoners see the shadow of a man and think it's real. They hear Bob talk and
associate Bob's voice with the shadow of the man. But if one day Bob decides to put
a female statue on his head and talks, the prisoners will be confused.
Imagine what
would happen if one of these prisoners got free.
- He would turn around
and he would be blinded by the light from the fire and would want to turn around to the
familiar shadows
- His eyes would adjust
- He can see the objects
- He can see the
fire
- He would see the relation between 4 and 5. He would then see that the shadows
were caused by these people and the objects on top of their heads.
- Outside the
cave there is the sun. A trickle of light comes into the cave. And the prisoner would
naturally be attracted to the sunlight because he now knows that what he thought was real
was caused by the fire which is light. He would begin a long arduous journey and when he
would finally make it outside of the cave, he sees trees, rivers, etc.
Now
something else is going to happen to the freed prisoner.- He would be blinded
by the sun
- He would want to return to the cave
- But his eyes would adjust but first
only so that he could look at the shadows outside of the cave, like the shadow of a tree
-
His eyes would eventually adjust even more and he could look at the things that caused the
shadows, like the actual tree.
- His eyes would adjust yet so that he could look at the
sun
- He could see that the sun causes the trees to grow
- He can see that the sun
causes him to exist
He can see that the sun causes him to know about the trees
and to know that the sun caused all of this and he would see that it was all Good. It's so
Good that hegets really excited. - He is so excited that he has to go tell everyone,
all the rest of the prisoners.
So when he reaches the cave he begins to tell everyone
that the shadows which is what they think has been real for their whole entire lives, is
bullshit. He will tell them this so many times that they will eventually kill him.
How this
refers to the divided line.
- When you are looking at the shadows in the cave,
that is Part A of the divided line.
- When you turn around to see the objects on the
people's heads, that is Part B ofthe divided line.
- When you go outside the cave
and see the shadows, that is Part C of the divided line.
- When you are looking at
the objects of the shadows outside of the cave, that's Part D of the divided line.
-
When you are looking at the sun, and see that it caused everything and that everything is
Good to know, the whole picture, that is Part E of the divided line.
Puideia is the Greek word for education, but it means
literally "turning around". Exduce is our word for
education, like the Latin. It means to be led out.
In the story you should notice that there are two places where the prisoner turns around, this is because part of learning is teaching. You are duty
bound to go back into the cave. Yeah, they're going to kill you, but that is your job.
Human existence is inside the cave and Socrates wants everyone to remember what
they've forgotten when they went into the cave.
We live and die in the cave and our
only route out is dialectic.
Christian theologians steal this idea from Plato, they just
change "Good" to"God".
Email : melonhead@angelfire.com
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