The Cave

Imagine a cave. Prisoners are chained facing its far wall. They’ve been kept there all their lives and their heads are held fixed so that they can ‘t see anything except the wall of the cave. Behind them there is a fire and between the fire and their backs a road. Along the road various people walk casting their shadows on the cave wall; some off them carry models of animals which also cast shadows. The prisoners inside the cave only ever see shadows. They believe the shadows are the real things because they don’t know any better. But in fact they never see real people.

They one day one of the prisoners is released and allowed to look towards the fire. At first he is completely dazzled by the flames, but gradually he starts to discern the world around him. Then his is taken out of the cave into the full light of the sun, which again dazzles him. He slowly begins to realise the poverty of his former life: he had always been satisfied with the world of shadows when behind him lay the brightly lit real world in all its richness. Now as his eyes acclimatise to the daylight he sees what his fellow prisoners have missed and feels sorry for them. Eventually he becomes so used to the light that he can even look directly at the sun.

Then he is taken back to his seat in the cave. His eyes are no longer used to his shadowy existence. He can no longer make the fine discrimination between shadows that his fellow prisoners fine easy. From their point of view his eyesight has been ruined by his journey out of the cave. He has seen the real world; they remain content with the world of superficial appearances and wouldn’t leave the cave even if they could.

Adapted by Nigel Warburton, based on excerpt from Plato’s The Republic (pp 239 - 242)

According to Plato, the majority of humankind is, like the prisoners, content with a world of mere appearance. Only philosophers make the journey out of the cave and learn to experience things as they really are; only they can have genuine knowledge.

Sounds rather arrogant, I know.. but there is a certain amount of truth in it, no?

this remains one of my all-time favourite passages...