Plato and Truth 

PLATO’S “Allegory of the Cave” has served as a model for how truth interacts with the world around us for thousands of years. What is one aspect of the allegory that makes sense to you, and why? What do you think it represents? (No Googling! Give it to me straight.)

What is your take on your colleague’s interpretation of the allegory? Does it agree with your own understanding of the allegory? What deeper meaning might exist behind their understanding…or yours?

1.3 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (READ)

Plato’s “Ideas”

In a study of Plato’s philosophy, there is this notion of ideas (or, as Plato calls them, “Forms”) that exist independent of the mind and are understood only by the mind, even though they do not depend upon being understood in order to exist. When someone talks about the “Platonic ideal” of an object or concept, this is what they are referring to. The “Platonic ideal” of a car is what two people talking to one another agree is the notion of a car – a shared idea that gives them common ground. If two people cannot agree what a “car” is, one of them must be wrong, according to Plato. In other words, objective truth exists – some things are true whether or not we believe them to be true.

The Allegory of the Cave

Plato Allegory of the Cave.pdf

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Explanation of the Allegory

The purpose of the allegory is to reflect on the nature of belief (things we believe to be true whether or not evidence for it exists) verses knowledge (things that are true independent of belief). 

1. Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of ideas.
2. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this.
3. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in his Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire.  Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see. Here is an illustration of Plato’s Cave:
   From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.
4. Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows.
5. So when the prisoners talk, what are they talking about? If an object (a book, let us say) is carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on the wall, and a prisoner says “I see a book,” what is he talking about?He thinks he is talking about a book, but he is really talking about a shadow. But he uses the word “book.” What does that refer to?
6. Plato gives his answer at line (515b2). The text here has puzzled many editors, and it has been frequently emended. The translation in Grube/Reeve gets the point correctly:“And if they could talk to one another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the names they used applied to the things they see passing before them?”
7. Plato’s point is that the prisoners would be mistaken. For they would be taking the terms in their language to refer to the shadows that pass before their eyes, rather than (as is correct, in Plato’s view) to the real things that cast the shadows.If a prisoner says “That’s a book” he thinks that the word “book” refers to the very thing he is looking at. But he would be wrong. He’s only looking at a shadow. The real referent of the word “book” he cannot see. To see it, he would have to turn his head around.
8. Plato’s point: the general terms of our language are not “names” of the physical objects that we can see. They are actually names of things that we cannot see, things that we can only grasp with the mind.
9. When the prisoners are released, they can turn their heads and see the real objects. Then they realize their error. What can we do that is analogous to turning our heads and seeing the causes of the shadows? We can come to grasp the Forms with our minds.
10. Plato’s aim in the Republic is to describe what is necessary for us to achieve this reflective understanding. But even without it, it remains true that our very ability to think and to speak depends on the Forms. For the terms of the language we use get their meaning by “naming” the Forms that the objects we perceive participate in.
11. The prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with shadows of books. But they would be mistaken if they thought that the word “book” refers to something that any of them has ever seen.Likewise, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical objects. But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts that we grasp were on the same level as the things we perceive.

Kimberly Lopez (She/Her)

After reading “Allegory of the Cave”, the only thing I kept thinking about was someone letting go of beliefs they held their whole life’s. For example the line “And if someone were [then] to show him any of the things that were passing by and forced him to answer the question about what it was, don’t you think that he would be at wit’s end and in addition would consider that what he previously saw [with is own eyes] was more unhidden than what was now being shown [to him by someone else].” That line would be like if person 1 would show person 2 the reality of a situation but if it threatened person 2’s beliefs then they would automatically think that person 1 is clearly wrong. Because person 2 has been taught to believe in a specific reality and now that person 1 is going against that, person 2 reverts back to what they were taught and think that what they know is the only reality. So in turn person 2 reject to see the reality that was shown to them because they choose to trust what they know as reality themselves. I don’t know if I explained what I mean by all this well enough, but I hope I did.

Danielle Guerra

One thing that stands out to me about Plato’s “allegory of the cave,” is the idea of perception. The prisoners thought they were seeing books and would argue that they have seen books with their own eyes and would argue that it is a true statement, only until they saw the actual truth of the puppets would they understand that their perception was wrong. I think to better understand our current world we need to understand that perception is not truth and can be manipulated to fit the narrative of whatever argument is being made. Currently we are in the mist of many citizens deciding on if the media can be trusted or not. Without conversation about what we perceive there can be no understanding of what is true.