Platos Republic and the Allegory of the Cave
The Allegory of the Cave in Platos Republic is one of the most important distillations of the mind of the philosopher in terms of what is ultimate reality. In the allegorical cave lives a group of peoplewho may be called prisoners, because they are intellectually imprisoned within a world whose bars are fabricated by their own laziness. They have been there their whole lives, and because of how they are situated in the cave, they see only shadows on the wall, which are cast by the fire that burns behind them. They spend all their time paying attention to the shadows, mistaking them for actual forms and truth.
However, what Plato goes on to show in Socrates allegory is that the real world is outsidethe actual truth is not these shadows but the light that makes them possible. One person frees himself from the shadows by turning around to locate the source of light. He follows it to the firebut then outside the cave there is even more lightand high up in the sky is the source. This light in the sky symbolizes the ultimate truth, the ultimate reality. The rest of the allegory speaks to the mans movement towards that truth, which is essentially like climbing an intellectual mountain. Basically, the whole of the Republic is Platos attempt to climb that mountain with regards to human society, how it should be organized, how people should live, and what really matters. What Plato gets at time and again is that the Good is the ultimate truth, and its pursuit is what matters above all elseand the pursuit of fame, pleasure, wealthall of this pales in comparison.
The point that Plato makes is that the majority of people live most of their lives like fools or prisoners in the cave, blind to the reality and to the Good. Philosophers have the ability and the duty,...
The philosopher-king in you may (like your conscience, I suppose) keep you from deviating off track.
I think that if we accept Platos argument, the consequences are pretty clear; we would change our lives and our world by living for the Good instead of for pleasure or self-love or profit or other things that degrade us. I must admit that much of the Good still needs definition, but it does seem that there is a great deal of overlap between what Plato hints at as good in the Republic and what traditional Christian culture upheld as good. Todays world seems wholly confused on this point, and society seems about to break out into war over this matter of what is right and wrong, good and evil. The conflict seems to be at a boiling point. We need the lightbut the mountain seems high and hard to climb. People want solutions nowand few have the patience or long-suffering to endure the terrible calamities that may come if terrible solutions are imposed by…
