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Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

 




Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. 

 First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom.

Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels.

Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know.

Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers as a group. Or, rather, it assigns them two tasks -- the search for reality and the need to be of service. The way up and the way back down.

Finally, there is a warning about the risks of philosophy. This is a disciple of Socrates writing, and "Socrates" is the fictionalized figure leading the discussion. The guy who gets out of the cave, sees the outside world and the Sun, and then goes back into the cave to explain it all: should know up front that they -- the true believers in those shadows -- might kill him.

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