The Cave
The Teaching
And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: —Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. …
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? …
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. …
Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
— Plato, Republic VII
Commentary
It’s the most famous image in Western philosophy. Plato introduces it as an image (“let me show in a figure”), and its subject is images. The prisoners have only ever seen shadows of carved figures thrown on a wall, so for them the shadows are the world. Their truth, Socrates says, is a shadow of an image, twice removed.
Glaucon calls them strange prisoners, and Socrates answers in three words: like ourselves. The cave isn’t a story about other people.
The part that’s quoted less often is the ending. One prisoner is freed, climbs into daylight, and comes back down to tell the others. His eyes, used to the sun, can’t make out the shadows any more, and to the prisoners he looks ridiculous. Then the passage turns dark. Anyone who tried to lead them out, Socrates says, they would kill. Plato wrote this some years after Athens had put Socrates to death.
Themes
Connections 11
Unsure
Buddhism reached Greeks in India: Ashoka’s Greek edicts at Kandahar, King Menander questioning a monk (Milindapañha), and Greek donors to Buddhist monasteries. Greek art shaped Gandharan Buddhism. No Buddhist influence on Greek philosophy is documented; it has been argued for Pyrrho.
Travelled
Greek thought reached Neoplatonism by 250 CE. Plotinus read himself as Plato’s interpreter.
Travelled
Greek thought reached Neoplatonism by 250 CE. Plotinus read himself as Plato’s interpreter.
Unsure
No documented reading of Greek thought by Alan Watts.
Travelled
Terence McKenna read and drew on Greek thought.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Judaism and Greek thought were in documented contact (from 300 BCE).
Unsure
No documented reading of Greek thought by Tool.
Travelled
Greek thought reached Christianity by 50 CE. The New Testament is written in Greek. John’s Logos is a Greek idea, and the Church Fathers read Plato.