Platos Cave

1
Platos Cave

• The descent of the philosopher

2
The story of the cave

• Chained to a fixed position, the prisoners can
  only see shadows on the wall.
• Escaping her fate, one prisoner escapes and
  through a painful process she is thrown outside
  the cave and exposed to broad daylight.
• There she learns to see particular things
  clearly. She also learns to see the sun thus
  fully developing her seeing capacity.
• After being enlightened she decides to return to
  the cave even though this would mean risking her
  life.

3

• to hold being and justice together in a
  single vision (Yeats)
  
  
  
• To fully appreciate the being of the world for
  what it is, one must enact ones own being as
  just.
• In order for one to fully enact ones being as
  just one must both dwell properly in the proper
  place and share ones being with others in an
  appropriate way.
• The main aim and fundamental drive of Platos
  philosophical project was to understand the
  precise meaning of encountering the other human
  being through justice .

4

• Justice dwelling properly in the proper place by
  being worthy of ones proper role in life
• Soul/Self to have a soul or a self is to have
  the capacity to dwell properly in the proper
  place and thus to be worthy of ones proper role

5
Philosopher/non-philosopher

• the proper role of the philosopher is to be the
  friend of knowledge
• the proper role of the non-philosopher is to be
  the friend of the philosopher

6

• The philosopher performs a double function
  one is purely philosophical and the other is
  political/ethical
• 1. the philosopher must appropriately dwell
  in the appropriate place of knowledge
• 2. the philosopher must offer herself as the
  appropriate place where the non-philosophers
  come together to appropriately dwell as the
  friends of the philosopher

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Platos story of the cave, and indeed The
Republic as a whole, is a philosophical attempt
to answer the following questions

• -how is it possible for one single human being
  to act as the dwelling place for humanity as a
  collective?
• -How might humans enact themselves as a
  collective through a process of dwelling in the
  philosophers soul?
• -What does it mean for one to be able to
  utter- me-we?

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• I emphasize the term appropriate to
  highlight the fact that, for Plato, humans can
  also dwell in places and in ways that are
  forgetful of, or hiding the fact that, we have a
  soul/self capable of justice.
• From this perspective the allegory of the cave
  is a story of both despair and hope, or more
  accurately, of hope in despair and of despair in
  hope.

9
The story of the cave

• Chained to a fixed position, the prisoners can
  only see shadows on the wall.
• Escaping her fate, one prisoner escapes and
  through a painful process she is thrown outside
  the cave and exposed to broad daylight.
• There she learns to see particular things
  clearly. She also learns to see the sun thus
  fully developing her seeing capacity.
• After being enlightened she decides to return to
  the cave even though this would mean risking her
  life.

10
Chained in a fixed position, the prisonerscan
only see shadows on the wall.

• Paradox the prisoners cannot see but they arent
  blind. Precisely because they arent blind they
  fail to see. Their seeing isnt genuine because
  it is the seeing that cannot see.
• What they see are shadows, things that bear the
  least being. Yet they think of these as full
  being, as the true reality.

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• There is a sense of reality inherent in seeing,
  in the very act and being of seeing. In other
  words seeing is intentional it tends towards
  reality.
• Due to this tendency, even the least genuine
  seeing potentially tends towards what is fully
  real.
• Because the real is immanently connected to its
  being seen, that which is most real belongs to
  the kind of being that doesnt hide what it is,
  at all.
• But shadows hide what they are. By extension the
  prisoners seeing activity hides itself from
  itself, in not being aware that what it sees is
  minimally true. This seeing (of the shadows)
  doesnt know what it is. As a result its own
  reality is not fully real.

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• What is the cause of this blindness in seeing?
  The prisoners being as a whole. The prisoner
  doesnt dwell appropriately in the appropriate
  place. That is, the prisoners soul is hidden
  from her in so far as it is the capacity to dwell
  appropriately. The prisoner is thus hidden from
  herself.
• It follows that only a change in the prisoners
  being as a whole can liberate the soul and lead
  to genuine seeing, or knowledge of reality.

13

• This is why, for Plato, doubting ones beliefs is
  a matter of doubting ones manner of being as a
  whole. But ones being as a whole involves a
  world. Therefore doubting involves both ones
  being and the world corresponding to it. This is
  achieved by moving to a different world.
• To know means to be properly situated in a
  manner that both involves and reveals ones being
  as a whole, or ones soul or self.
• Here knowing means being in a way that enables
  one to embrace ones being. Embracing is love and
  love is coming back, returning to oneself, by
  being absolutely claimed by the Good.

14

• the highest form of knowledge is knowledge of
  the form of the good, from which things that are
  just and so on, derive their usefulness and
  value (par. 505).

15

• 3 elements involved in seeing outside the cave
• the visible object
• the eye with the power of sight
• light

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• The Sun as the source of light
• is not identical with sight
• it is the cause of sight
• and is seen by the sight it causes.

17

• The Good is
• the source of the intelligibility of the objects
  of knowledge, their being and reality but
• it is not identical with these.

18

• The philosopher sees specific objects/forms and,
  at the same time, she is aware of pure seeing.
• To see the specific form means to take its shape.
  For example, to see or know the form of beauty
  the soul must itself become beautiful.

19

• The philosopher returns to the cave without in
  fact returning since the one who returns is
  dramatically different from the one who left the
  cave.
• reversal of values

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• Outside the cave the soul realizes that it
  expands. When the philosopher returns her soul
  functions as a place of dwelling for the
  community.
• The philosopher returns because her soul is
  finite and being finite means sharing your being
  with others.

21

• Although all beings tend towards the good only
  the philosopher can encounter it..
• Ascending/descending

22

• Every word is a doorway
• to a meeting, one often cancelled,
• and thats when a word is true when it
  insists on the meeting.
• (The meaning of
  simplicity, Yannis Ritsos)