Plato\'s Allegory of the Cave

PLATO'S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

Plato believed that all human knowledge must be predicated upon objectively provable facts rather than on subjective beliefs and opinions. To illustrate the importance of access to direct information to support logical conclusions, Plato introduced his Allegory of the Cave. The allegory involved men chained together facing the wall of a cave. Because they have no direct view of anything going on outside the cave behind them, their only visual information comes from their interpretation of the shadows projected onto the wall in front of them from behind. The Allegory of the Cave provides a vivid illustration of the importance of logical reasoning as a fundamental skill without which it is impossible to understand objective reality.

Plato argued that understanding the logic of objective reasoning required skill acquired through formal training in logical argument and reasoning. According to Plato, the untrained person who is uneducated in logical argument is in approximately the same position with respect to understanding objective reality through logical deduction as the prisoners chained together in the cave facing a wall of shadows. Plato sets out the situation of the prisoners in the cave as follows:

"Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets."

The purpose of the description is to compare the indirectness and inaccuracy of the view available to the prisoners and the ability of the untrained individual to understand empirical truth without training in logical reasoning and argument. By comparison, the untrained person is completely unable to appreciate the empirical truth of the available facts and circumstances just as the prisoners chained inside the cave can not hope to form an accurate view of a world that is only visible to them indirectly through shadows. Plato's allegory continues with a description of the likely result of suddenly allowing one of the prisoners to turn around and view reality directly in the full light of day:

"And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?"

After describing the initial reaction of the prisoner who is suddenly allowed to see the light directly, Plato goes on to illustrate the evolution of higher reasoning and the manner in which formal education in logical reasoning and argument completely changes the way that the individual regards the world based on logical reasoning and analysis. Most importantly, Plato describes the fundamental difference between the prisoner who is released and his former companions who are still chained together and unable to see the world directly.