Plato's Allegory of the Cave - Term Paper Example

 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave Plato’s allegory of the cave is “philosophy” that is a notable contribution to the existence of philosophy overall.1 Because of the nature of forms, and the difficulty associated with necessarily rendering them to be sensory perception understood only by humans, Plato takes on a possibly very daunting philosophical task in being able to assign or attach some sort of meaning to that which is an indiscrete object masking as an allegory. For, as one should probably know, the shadow is an allegory for a man’s self, ultimately, the id. The id is what separates the humans from the animals, and this philosophy delves into what is truly the nature of a man. It consists, one realizes, not of the man’s shadow but of himself as well as the representation of himself—which can be realized in the shadow. That itself is an allegory for what is really happening here—in essence, Plato is parsing that of which humanity really consists. If one, for example—were to be chained to a cave wall—does that diminish any less one’s humanity, one’s dignity, one’s sense of pride? Perhaps, but it cannot defeat the self, which is an inimitable, integral part of the human psyche—a cave, indeed, in which Plato explores more deeply the mysteries of the human mind. Just as some philosophers might attribute parts of a speech with rooms in a house, Plato is advancing upon new territory here—basically a type of psychoanalysis—which delves into what really makes humans tick. He has found out, and figured out, what is at the basis of all human interest and toil. It’s a need for knowledge. The cave allegory is significant because Plato thought that the cave represented work in education. Plato felt that the cave was symbolic of something greater in a man’s life. The cave could be an allegory for the fact that man spends all of his life—in essence—figuratively chained inside a cave. One struggles and slaves away, toiling at work, in search of an education, in search of a future. Meanwhile, the real battle is trying to find oneself in the midst of living life. Seeing shadows on the wall are an allegory for noticing one’s form in sensory ways—although it does not reflect the true nature or character of the person which it represents. Indeed, the shadows are a leitmotif for something more spiritual—it could be said. One has probably heard the phrase, “He’s only a shadow of himself, only a shadow of what he used to be.” A shadow intimates the presence of a skeleton which does not represent the true heart or soul of a person, but only the person’s physicality—the earthiness of his or her being. Indeed, these shadows represent a filament in the light bulb of human existence, which is ignited with personality. It is in this revelatory moment that one realizes the importance and power of the human spirit—and it is in this moment that one learns how everything important about being human can be understood from the allegory of the cave. It is not just our sensory awareness that is important to have in life, but knowledge of this sensory awareness at its height is the most evolved consciousness that a human can hope or expect to have. It is this consciousness that one seeks to cultivate through education, and this is reinforced by the allegory of the cave. The cave allegory does for philosophy what Freud’s theory did for psychology. It revolutionized everything. Plato’s cave allegory is ultimately the ability to ascribe forms to shadows, making indiscrete objects into discrete realities. Thomas Hobbes was ridiculed for taking abstract notions and then defining those in concrete terms. But if we had never had such abstractions defined, we would—in Western political philosophy—not have had notions such as justice, good, evil, right, wrong, and moral philosophy, for example. Plato’s allegory of the cave is simply another way in which he attempted to define a human element. Plato’s allegory of the cave recognizes the importance of sensory input into the average person’s life, and the recognition of such sensory consciousness as one of the highest states that is available to the average person. Such a state is what one hopes to achieve at one’s moment of highest self-actualization. However, such heights cannot be reached by the untrained mind. It is only those philosophers who have been trained in order to master the powers of the unconscious mind who will be able to understand what the allegory of the cave truly means, although an attempt can be made to explain it in layman’s terms. Basically, the allegory of the cave describes a deeper need, a primalism, a subversive human force that transcends words. It is the human need for other people that supercedes all this philosophy—and the need for the human to live in relation to his or her community that takes precedence over allegiance to a shadow. For, as much as one may need oneself, one must take refuge in the light of another human’s presence. This is because—in the presence of another human being, we are never in true darkness, therefore always seeing elements of light present. Education is the light that illuminates the cave. As much as one may loathe one’s existence, possibly being chained to a cave wall—there is hope with the thought of education. It was argued by Locke that every child born was a tabula rossa, a blank slate upon which things were drawn—much like the blank wall that the chained people stared at in Plato’s allegory of the cave, until they were freed. Hobbes also “…believed that the mind at birth was like blank paper.”2 However, it is possible to disagree entirely with that theory that people are tabula rossas once born. In their minds, it is human nature that ideas have been planted within children once they are born. Children do not act out of knowing nothing. It is true that they do know something. Of course, children—especially very young children—can’t philosophize about the earth, moon, and stars, but they realize something which is very fundamental, which is: learning is the key to unlock all the mysteries of the universe. Babies are very keen to this fact. Although babies don’t exactly have a perfect schema of the world mapped out for them per se, babies learn by being placed in a behavioral state which allows for observation. It is this observation that continues throughout a person’s lifetime. A baby’s physical sight does not improve unless his visual field is challenged by having new objects introduced into his line of sight. Similarly, in order to challenge the mind, there must be forms or objects which must become more concrete. It was Plato who sought to make a theory of forms that adequately described reality as a sensory menagerie—and that when this menagerie of sensations was experienced, this is what was equated to be one of the highest forms of consciousness due to an experiential knowledge of forms in itself. The cave represents several things, but ultimately one can only draw few conclusions from the statements that have been set forth today in this paper. We see the cave as an allegory for learning, and that one’s existence—when one begins life—is not just a blank slate. Additionally, the theory of forms allows for us to realize that one’s existence is not merely a collaboration of stuff, but the visceral sensory field that accompanies much of life in a very real and meaningful way. For, just as the shadows danced upon the walls of the cave, the people chained in the cave being entertained by their very own selves—we too have shadows of ourselves that are realized in everyday community with each other. We see it in the smiles on each others’ faces and in the way that we walk, talk, move, live. Evidence of the cave smiles back at us from the predawn of mankind’s history, reminding us that we are but dust. It was Plato’s demonstration that, chained to a cave or not, humans ultimately had an element about them that made them distinctly human—which was the ability to distinguish themselves as separate forms from the shadows, realizing that they had value and worth apart from nothingness. Plato’s cave was a symbol for the unraveling of mankind’s secret, the secret that man secretly wished that he were free—which is the basis for all Lockeian theory that allows for the freedom of humankind. Indeed, every man deserves to be free, but even moreso, every man has the capacity to realize the limits of his own capabilities—which are, respectfully, not limited to the domestic space of the cave—but are also compatible with going out into the world and making sense of the forms of one’s worldly reality. This is basically what it means to be human, in a nutshell. WORKS CITED Palmer, Donald. Does the Center Hold? An Intro to Western Philosophy, 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Unit: What is Good and Evil? Thomas Hobbes. Retrieved 28 February 2011. Online. Available: . Read More