Transcript Plato`s Allegory of the Cavex

Background
Socrates- character in the dramatic dialogue
Plato’s Republic written around 380 BCE
Main question: What is Justice
Allegory of the Cave occurs in book 7 of Plato’s Republic
Plato using Socrates as a vehicle for his own ideas
Background
• Socrates was tried by the state for corrupting the
young men
• He questioned the nature of Athenian society and
conventional acceptance of the state religion.
• He did this at a time when Athens was weakened by
the Peloponnesian Wars and had lost to Sparta
Questions the Republic seeks to answer
Is your first duty to civil law or to your conscience?
Which is more important? The individual or the
state?
What are you supposed to do if public and private
good clash?
Allegory
• Characters or events symbolize or stand
in for something real
• 1:1 relationship
• C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe.
• Lion = Jesus
Socrates tells this story to Glaucon
Socrates tells this story to Glaucon
What are the people doing down there?
Naming the things that come before them
Naming things is a fundamental property of
language
Attempt to render the world orderly
But what they are seeing are shadows of objects
representing things in the world
A prisoner is drug up and out of the
cave.
He doesn’t leave willingly.
He is forced out.
Eyes need to adjust, finally aware of things and how
they look.
The sun seems to be the first principle of everything
else.
When he has seen the truth, he goes back and tries
to instruct the prisoners.
Sorting out the Allegory
• The sun seems to be the first principle of
everything else.
• We are like the people in chains.
• Who are the people carrying the objects?
• Who might they be in our society?
• Who is the person who drags out the prisoner?
• What does Socrates say the 2 different worlds
represent?
What does Socrates say the 2
different worlds represent?
• World in the cave =sensible world
• World outside the cave=intellectual world
What does this suggest? Ideas are more real than the
physical world.
Take for instance a triangle. A triangle can be made
according to the template or rules governing triangles,
but triangles in the world are imperfect and
impermanent. The idea of a triangle is unchanging.
Is the Allegory about education?
• The cave is the world of conventional opinion
• The outside world is where conventional opinions
are called into question
Socrates says• Don’t ever be too ready to laugh at people who are
confused
• But if I am right, then certain teachers are wrong to
think they can place knowledge into the head of a
student.
We have to turn around
Turn mind
Turn spirit
Turn desires
1. The Allegory of the Cave is written in the form of
a(n) _______________between Glaucon and Socrates.
A. competition
B. exchange of letters
C. dialogue
2. Socrates tells Glaucon that the prisoners in the cave
A. are like us
B. are not Greek
C. do not have the capacity to learn or see
the truth
3. What criticism does Sophocles offer regarding the
teaching methods of some professors?
A. They fail to teach the true meaning of Homer’s
epic poems.
B. They claim to put knowledge into their students,
when their students are already born with the
ability to discover the truth.
C. They spend too much time on mathematics and
geometry.
4. What does Socrates say the best minds must do
when they have reached an enlightened state?
A. Separate themselves from society and dedicate
themselves to learning.
B. Return to the cave (the world) and serve society
as impartial leaders.
C. Dedicate themselves to bringing as many people
as possible to the same degree of enlightenment
in order to have a functioning democracy.
5. In the cave, the prisoners watch
A. Moving shadows made on the wall of the cave as
the sun sets behind the trees.
B. Shadows made by a fire that burns behind a
procession of people carrying various objects.
C. Hand shadows made by the prison guard on the
wall of the cave.