This is the second post in a series of the ancient Athenian philosophers, and I’ll be exploring some of the first ideas in metaphysics. Metaphysics is the study of existence, reality, and the nature of the world. The first post was on Socrates and intellectual humility - if you haven’t read it, you can find it here. I’m hoping to bring all the ideas together so if you haven’t read the first post, please check it out. Anyways, on to Plato!
I’m going to start with a story, Plato’s allegory of the cave.
The Allegory of the Cave
Life in the Cave
A group of prisoners are chained in a cave since they were children. They are chained to a wall, unable to move their heads, so all they can see is a wall in which shadows are projected. Above and behind them, is a fire which other men are using to cast these shadows. They hold up figures of animals, trees, and other objects and talk occasionally - a bit like a puppetier at a puppet show. Since this is all the prisoners have ever known, this is their perceived reality.
Life outside the Cave
One of the prisoners is released from the chains and they turn behind them to see the fire. The brightness of the fire blinds the prisoner and he finds it difficult to see the objects and the men. The men then tell the prisoner that the shadows he sees are merely an illusion, and what he is seeing now is the true reality. This upsets the prisoner and he escapes back to the shadows on the wall, as this what he knows.
The prisoner is then forceably dragged out of the cave, a journey that leaves the prisoner angry and in pain. To make things worse, once the prisoner is outside he is blinded further by the radiant light of the sun. However, “slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First they can see only shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself.” Only once he could see the sun itself did he understand truly what it is. He reasoned himself to an understanding of the true reality.
Return to the Cave
Having now understood the world outside the cave was better than the world he experienced inside the cave, the prisoner returns to the cave to share his findings with the other prisoners remaining in the cave. “He would bless himself for the change, and pity (the other prisoners) and would want to bring his fellow cave dwellers out the cave and into the sunlight.”
Upon returning to the cave, the prisoner would be blind as he had grown accustomed to the sunlight, just as he was when he first left the cave. The remaining prisoners see the blind prisoner and do not trust him about the world outside the cave. They believe if they leave the shadows they will be harmed, and threaten to kill anybody who attempts to drag them out of the cave. The prisoners found safety in their ignorance. Knowledge of the unknown was dangerous.
Conclusion
From the point of view of the freed prisoner, there are two things happening:
- The prisoner has been exposed to two realities, the shadows of the cave and the true reality of the world outside the cave.
- Knowledge of true reality was initially painful and frightening, but ultimately it led the prisoner to a greater understanding of the world. Once this understanding was reached, the prisoner was never able to see the shadows of the cave again - he was now blinded to this reality.
This allegory is packed full of symbolisms that can be interpreted in many ways. Contemporary philosophers like Heidegger and Arendt were still discussing it in the 20th century! But for the sake of this post, I want to focus on the above point 1 - the idea of two realities. Which leads us to Plato’s theory of Forms.
The Theory of Forms
Plato’s theory of Forms posits that the physical world we are living in is not real, like shadows on a wall, but rather an imperfect reflection of a higher, more perfect reality of Forms. These Forms are non-physical, timeless, unchanging, and absolute essences of all things. Objects and matter in the physical world are imperfect copies of these Forms. For example, there are many different types of trees in the physical world, but we can recognise them as having a perfect Form of a tree. See also the example below about the Form of beauty.
So what does this have to do with this post? I really like the idea that the world we perceive might not be what we think it is, and there might be something else out there that is more “real”. We walk around using our senses to understand this world, we use our brains to continually update our understanding of this world. But what if we are wrong? There are countless examples where we have been wrong about the world we live in. Human perception is not reliable. We all live individually in our own realities, but yet we share the same world. What can free us from these chains and allow us to escape the cave?
Have you heard of our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ?
Hahaha, I’m joking. I don’t know the answer to this question. Although I do believe the sciences and maths are currently the best tools we have to address the imperfect physical world; but the world of perfect Forms is a different story. I will be exploring this idea in future posts but I first wanted to introduce the idea of metaphysics.
Criticisms and Counterarguments
There are plenty of critisms of Plato’s Theory of Forms, and I’m not going to get fully into them, but I will mention a few.
Firstly, Forms are not physical. As humans, we acquire knowledge through sensory experiences. You see, touch, smell, and taste enough trees in your life and you will know what a tree is. We have no means of interacting with Forms, so how can we be sure they exist? This is a gross oversimplification, but I hope you get the point.
Secondly, how do we know when we have escaped the cave? We can’t be sure. Who is to say that the world outside the cave is more real than the shadows of the cave?
- I’m not going to get into this now, but there is a theory that the freed prisoner is Plato’s idea of a philosopher king - an individual who has special knowledge of the Forms, has a moral obligation to share his knowledge with the rest of society, i.e. the rest of the prisoners.
- According to Plato, Democracy fails because voters, like the prisoners in the cave, are guided by shadows and instead these philosopher kings should rule society. It’s quite the elitist view from Plato.
Thirdly, and I think this might be the most interesting point, should you escape the cave? The prisoners were safe in their ignorance, and by virtue of leaving the cave they would have been harmed. You could argue whether the harm is worth the gain in knowledge.
Relevance to Modern Society
I hope you have found this post interesting, and piqued your interest in metaphysics. If you have found it difficult to relate to, let me give you another example. As a reference to modern society, I’m going to be using one of my favourite movies as an example.
The Matrix! For those who haven’t seen it, its a movie about a dystopian future where humanity is unknowingly controlled by machines. Humans created intelligent machines before a war broke out between them. Humans decided to block the machines access to solar energy, and so the machines responded by enslaving humanity and harvesting their bioelectric power. But rather than killing humans, the machines found it more efficient to keep humans in a shared simulated reality called the Matrix. People were born and lived in pods but their minds existed in the Matrix, and so the Matrix was their cave.
The movie begins with our protagonist Neo, played by the wonderful Keanu Reeves, who keeps encountering a strange phrase “The Matrix”, and is eventually approached by Trinity, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, and Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne. They explain to Neo that the world he lives in is not real, and offers him a choice between two pills: red to reveal the truth about the Matrix or blue to make Neo forget everything and go back to his former life in the Matrix. Importantly, Morpheus explains that “nobody can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself”. Neo proceeds to take the red pill and is shown the truth about the Matrix.
I’m going to stop there because I don’t want to spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it. But the relevance to Plato’s allegory of the cave and Theory of Forms is so glaringly obvious. Neo was a prisoner in the Matrix, he lived in a world where machines had pulled wool over his eyes. Morpheus offered Neo a choice to seek the truth, and its important that he was given a choice, as he can only see the truth with his own eyes. Just like our prisoner. Neo went on to see the truth about the Matrix, developed a deeper understanding of the world, and ended up doing some pretty awesome stuff.
Plato’s allegory of the cave is timeless. It’s had far-reaching implications in the history of not only philosophy, but science, art, linguistics, and theology. Whilst it has its criticisms, I think it is a fascinating idea that should make us question whether the world we live in is real. Or not…
Philosophy Profiles #2: Plato
