Questions About the ‘Allegory of the Cave’
While reading Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” I became slightly bothered by some of the imagery he used, probably because I could not help but relate the allegory more to acquiring a higher level of consciousness than what I think was Plato’s intended comment about trusting a priori knowledge over a posteriori. Whatever Plato’s intention, to me, some parts do not add up.
My first problem with Plato’s allegory is the stark difference he draws between the visible realm and the intelligible realm. To him, either a person breaks free of their chains or does not. At least in my experience, the degrees to which humans attain Plato’s definition of “education” are anything but black and white. In real life, even the most seemingly simple-minded prisoners in the shadows question the validity of what they see and pose epistemological questions often pointing to a deeper existence in the intelligible realm. Just because a person does not undergo a painful transformation “up the rough, steep path” does not mean he or she is completely unaware or in denial of “truth and understanding,” as the prisoners in the cave.
Perhaps we are intended to understand that some people are further along in their journey out of the cave than others, and Plato does address this briefly by acknowledging that a prisoner would “need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above,” suggesting that enlightenment does not come overnight. However, he undeniably paints an image of two separate groups of people: those who take what they see at face value, and those who pursue truth and goodness through knowledge. I believe the allegory would be both more accurate and easier to apply to daily life if it addressed the gray area between a person trapped in the visible realm and one completely in touch with truth within the intelligible realm.
Secondly, I do not understand why enlightenment obviously ends once the prisoners get out of the cave. Initially, the prisoners “in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts.” Since they were wrong once, how can the prisoners be confident after their escape that their new perception of “truth” is errorless? Plato even uses the terms “truer” and “clearer” in descriptions of the intelligible realm, as if to indicate that what is seen there is not necessarily the truest or clearest. It would be logical to assume that these prisoners, instead of being content with a “truer” world outside the cave, would be more skeptical of their perception of the world and explore the potential for an even clearer understanding.
Finally, if all humans have the capacity to break free of their chains, why does Plato describe the original man’s freedom from the cave as though it were something not done of his own accord, but rather, given to him by an outsider who “dragged him away from there by force?” How are the prisoners to know that something exists beyond the walls of their cave before someone breaks them free? The chains metaphor implies that the prisoners are bound until someone else releases them. To me, this portrayal seems inconsistent if Plato believes all humans have the equipment to access the intelligible realm independently.
I am not necessarily asserting that Plato’s allegory is flawed, because applying the a priori/a posteriori concept to the visible and intelligible realm makes understanding the lack of gray area or the enlightenment ending at the cave easier. I think I just read it from the wrong angle and started analyzing the wrong details, but I also thing that it is possible I took an inaccurate approach because the allegory may not be completely right in the first place for what Plato is trying to accomplish.
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1) I think your analysis is exactly right in your first objections, but it is basically the result that Plato wants: when you are right, you have absolute knowledge of the Forms; otherwise, you are wrong and in the delusion of the shadows. Plato elaborates on this view in several places, most notably in the Meno, where he discusses the following apparent paradox:
1) For anything, F, either one knows F or one does not know F.
2) If one knows F, then one cannot inquire about F.
3) If one does not know F, then one cannot inquire about F.
4) Therefore, for all F, one cannot inquire about F.
If you already know F (premise 2), then why would you need to inquire into it? But if you don’t already know F (premise 3), then how do you know what to inquire into? Either way, it seems we can’t know anything new.
Plato’s solution is that knowledge is really a kind of recollection or remembering. You have the knowledge of the forms somewhere in your mind, but you have somehow forgotten it; coming to know something is just remembering what you have forgotten. Therefore, there is no middle ground: either you remember it or you don’t.
This get’s Plato out of the paradox, and it explains why he has an all-or-nothing view of knowledge in the Allegory of the Cave, but you might think that this is just a terrible description of the learning process. I would have to agree.
This seems hard to reconcile with your second point, but there is obviously lots to say about Plato’s view of knowledge.
As to your final point, Plato seems to have a negative view of human nature. He thinks that people wouldn’t want to be released from the delusions of the cave, despite the fact that they have the innate equipment to free themselves if they so choose. They simply don’t stop to reflect on they options, and resign themselves to think that they are bound to their situation. That’s why, in a certain sense, the educational process must be forced on people; they don’t always come to it willingly.
Daniel Estrada
21 Sep 08 at 9:37 pm