THE LINE AND THE CAVE

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THE LINE AND THE CAVE

• Platos Models of Knowledge

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Context Republic 6 and 7

• The purpose of government is to advance the
  excellence (arete) of the citizens.
• Governing, therefore, requires expert knowledge,
  of how to govern and of the nature of excellence.
• Governing also requires good character
• Must be acquired (learned).
• Excellence is knowledge to know the Good is to
  do the Good.
• A special class of governors is required.
• Guardians.
• Helpers (auxiliaries).

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What is Knowledge?

• Books 6 and 7 give a general account of the
  answer.
• The two modelsthe Line and the Caveare images,
  not theories.

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The Line

• This model is static, showing the levels of
  knowing but not their acquisition or origin.
• The four levels are of unequal size, representing
  the relative clarity of each level.

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Platos Diagram
Knowledge
Episteme
Thought
Dianoia
Belief
Pistis
Conjecture
Eikasia
Note Translation of Greek terms varies.
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The Lowest Level Conjecture

• Most of what we believe is not even good
  guesswork. A good example is the way we are
  expected to vote for a candidate not on the
  basis of ideas or even promises, but of image.
  Warren Harding is said to have been elected
  President because he looked like a President.
• Similarly, we accept ideas because they seem
  good, or perhaps are recommended by use of some
  vague expression like quality.

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The Next Level Up Belief

• We believe things because they are common
  sense, because we have some experience that
  seems to support our belief, or perhaps because
  we have been told they were true by someone who
  seemed to be an expert.
• Most of this belief is good enough for simple
  practical purposes, but hardly enough for
  important things like deciding how we are to live
  our lives as individuals or as citizens.

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Ordinary Knowledge

• This level uses hypotheses (assumptions) that
  never get fully supported.
• Thinking at this level uses images, but not the
  way conjecture does. Images are used to
  illustrate ideas, or to suggest them. They are
  known to be images, not accepted as real.
• Plato gives the example of knowledge of
  mathematical objects. We dont prove that there
  are perfect circles we just prove theorems about
  them.
• Platos dialogues belong on this level. Real
  philosophy, he tells us, cant be written down.

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Real Knowledge

• Real knowledge is certain. There are no
  assumptions, and nothing is left out.
• This kind of knowledge would have to be
  comprehensive that is, it would include in a
  single vision everything knowable. That is one
  reason why it cant be expressed in language.
• A living person could only glimpse this level.
• This level is not the same as knowing
  everything. Since change is irrational, changing
  things cannot be fully known. In any case, it
  would be more like understanding everything.

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The Cave

• The image
• A group of prisoners in a cave facing a wall on
  which are shadows, which they try to identify
  and predict.
• Behind them people are carrying statues of
  various things. It is the shadows of these
  statues that the people see.
• Behind that is a fire, whose light causes the
  shadows.
• Outside the Cave is the world we usually think of
  as real.
• The outside world is illuminated by the Sun.
• What would happen if one of the prisoners were to
  escape from the Cave?

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Cave Shadows

• The prisoners in the cave can only see the
  shadows, cast by the fire, of the images that are
  being carried across the cave behind them. Thus
  the shadows are not even shadows of real things.
• The prisoners take the shadows for realities,
  however, and compete in recognizing them.
• This level corresponds to the lowest level of the
  Divided Line.

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Cave Moving Images

• Behind the prisoners images are being carried
  across the cave. Only the images are visible, not
  the people carrying them.
• Plato probably expects us to see that these
  objects are
• (1) Images, not realities.
• (2) Moving. Movement and change are always
  images of instability and thus not fully real.
• This corresponds to the next-to-last level of the
  Line.

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Cave Fire

• The fire does not have a counterpart on the Line.
  It probably represents something roughly
  equivalent to common sense.
• The fire is an offshoot of the Sun, which
  represents the True/Good/Beautiful.
• The observation and thinking that make up our
  common sense take place in a world that is a weak
  image of the real order of things, and thus our
  guesses are usually good enough for simple
  purposes.

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Cave Reflections

• A person who has escaped the Cave is dazzled by
  the light and can only look at objects as
  reflected in water. He is nevertheless seeing
  reflections of real things. This corresponds to
  the level of Thought (next to the top) on the
  Line.

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Cave Real Things

• The escaped prisoners vision adjusts to the
  light and he can now see the things of the
  ordinary world trees, animals, mountains.
  Notice that in the Cave model what we call real
  things correspond to what Plato takes to be real
  in a true sense, namely the ideal rational order,
  the Forms.

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Cave Sun

• For Plato, the order of things is ultimately the
  result of a single principle, which we call the
  True, the Good, or the Beautiful, depending on
  which aspect is most significant to us at the
  time. They are actually the same, three names for
  one reality.
• The True/Good/Beautiful both gives the world its
  order and makes it possible for us to understand
  it at least partially. It is symbolized here by
  the Sun, which both makes the world possible and
  makes it visible.

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Return to the Cave

• Plato discusses what would happen if a person
  were to return to the Cave after having seen the
  Sun. He would be unable to see well in the
  near-darkness, and would be ridiculed for not
  being able to know the shadows.
• He would also make people angry by claiming that
  there is a higher reality of which they are
  unaware. This refers, of course, to the
  Athenians trial and execution of Socrates.

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