Dear cita82,
Plato's Cave is an element of his Cave Allegory, at the beginning of
Book VII of his work "Politeia" ("The Republic").
In his Cave Allegory, Plato describes human perception of is assumed
to be reality with the following scenario:
Deep inside a cave, people are chained from their birth in a way that
they can't move or turn their heads. Their eyes are fixed at a wall in
front of them.
Behind those people, a fire burns; and between the fire and the
prisoners, there is a walkway with a low wall. Behind the wall,
puppeteers hold up puppets and objects. The diffuse shadows of these,
their own shadows and the shadows of the other prisoners are all the
chained can see on the wall. If one of the puppeteers speaks, the
prisoners take the echo reflected by the wall as the actual voice,
belonging to one of the shadows. The same is true for the voices of
the other prisoners. Since the shadows and the echoes are all they
know, that is what each of the prisoners considers reality.
One of the meanings of this allegory is that human perception of what
we think is reality is not only utterly limited, but possibly also
erroneous and deceptive: We are those living in the cave, and what we
accept as reality are actually only fuzzy shadows of objects shaped
after the true reality.
Plato goes on by describing what would happen if one of the prisoners
was unchained so he could turn around and, after his eyes had adapted
to the unfamiliar direct light fire, see the puppeteers and thus
realize the true character of the shadows on the wall. He would leave
the cage and have to get used to the bright sunlight, but then he
would see true reality and understand that what he and the other
prisoners down in the cage had accepted as reality was actually only a
weak shadow of reality. He would return to the cage to free the
others; but since his eyes had become accustomed to the bright
daylight of true reality, he would behave clumsy in the half-light of
the cave and not be able to return to the perception of the shadows on
the wall. This would lead the other prisoners to the conclusion that
he has left his sight and that trying to leave the cage is extremely
dangerous and wrong. They would, once he tried to unchain them and
demand that they too leave the cage, put him to death. This is meant
to illustrate the ignorance, misapprehension and dangers an
enlightened person, such as a philosopher, encounters when trying to
spread englightenment.
Being a philosophical text, Plato's Cave Allegory can be interpreted
in numerous ways; the above is only a brief approach.
To read more about Plato's Cave Allegory, please follow this link [1]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
You can read the Cave Allegory from Plato's "Republic" here (scroll
down a bit) [2]:
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ALLEGORY.HTM
This is another website with the Cave Allegory [3]:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/plato.html
Here is some background information [4]:
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
I hope that this is useful for you!
Regards,
Scriptor
Sources:
[1] Wikipedia: Allegory of the cave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
[2] World Civilizations: Greek Philiosophy - Plato's Allegory of the Cave
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ALLEGORY.HTM
[3] Washington State University: Plato - The Allegory of the Cave,
from The Republic
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/plato.html
[4] University of Washington: History of Ancient Philosophy - The
Allegory of the Cave
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
Search terms used:
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