Allegory of the Cave

Allegory of the Cave: Plato: Truth and Art

Allegory of the cave is one of the most interesting, enlightening and insightful example given by Plato in his book The Republic to explain such vague concepts as knowledge and truth. It appears in form of dialogues between Socrates and Glaucon and they touch upon various important concepts in connection with learning and discovery. Two very vital subjects discussed are art and truth. When we closely study the allegory, we realize that for Socrates and Plato, art was something powerful and thus dangerous. In this allegory, art has been presented in a negative light because Plato saw what people could do with art. He saw it in the form of drawing on the wall in the dark cave and realized that while art offered a means of communication, it could suppress man's ability to think clearly and may even fail to illuminate the senses.

Plato was of the view that most people in this world are living in complete darkness and art facilitates this retarded growth of men. This darkness has made it impossible to see the 'actual, unchanging' truth and thus the knowledge they possess about people and things is highly impaired. The great philosopher is trying to explain why people of greater knowledge can often encounter ridicule by those who have refused to come out of the cave. This is indeed a very interesting analogy, which must be analyzed carefully in order to understand its significance and relevance to this world. Before delving deeper into the explanation, it is important to know precisely what various objects in this allegory are representing. The cave refers to our current restricted existence. Sun represents the unchanging, great truth, which is the source of all goodness. Shadows are the false representations of the actual reality. Fire in this case is flawed knowledge. Journey upwards is the journey of the soul to the world of enlightenment. Initial blindness refers to suspension of delusion. Education means actual knowledge. Fetter is one's power of imagination that interferes with reception of true knowledge. Light from the upper world is true knowledge, which cannot be received by prisoners because they are chained. Prisoners are people who have not yet received true knowledge and thus represent most of the people in this world.

Plato believes that human beings possess intrinsic knowledge, which may never affect their senses unless they seek and acquire enlightenment. This is an interesting concept, which dispels the notion that educators can impart knowledge to their students. He maintains that knowledge is something, which lies dormant in our subconscious and can only be activated through light of truth. In the cave, however this is something close to impossible because prisoners here are chained in such a manner that they cannot receive light from upper world. All they can see are the shadows of their fellow human beings with the help of fire that burns somewhere close to them. This fire is false knowledge that we have been forced to acquire in the absence of greater truth. In other words, man needs fire to see objects when actual daylight is missing. This means fire is not real light, it is sought and needed only when man cannot discover actual source of light. This actual source is the sun, which cannot be seen by the prisoners because they live in an underground den. Sun is thus the, "the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual [world]"[1]. This means fire is only a false knowledge in the light of which man cannot see reality as it is. Thus instead of seeing people as three-dimensional human beings, prisoners can only see two-dimensional shadows. In this cave, knowledge is severely restricted due to introspection and imagination. It means that when man doesn't have access to 'source of all knowledge," he goes inside himself to give names and meanings to objects around him. During this introspection period, his power of imagination takes over his mind so much so that there are no empty spaces left. We need to bar in mind that according to Plato, real light can enter the mind only when it finds some vacant spaces there. When however, a prisoner is able to escape the restricting life of the cave, he makes the journey upwards, from the world of delusion to the world of knowledge and reality. Initially he is unable to comprehend the actual truth because his eyes and mind is so used to the darkness of the den. "..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."[1]

When he is finally able to see the truth as it really is, he learns that sun is the source of all 'good' or knowledge. The moon or any other illuminated object receives its light from the sun, which shows that sun is the real source of all intelligence and exists as it an unchanging solid form.