|
Here allegory may show us best how education- or the lack of it- affects our nature. Imagine men living in a cave with a long
passage-way stretching between them and the cave's mouth, where it opens wide to the light. Imagine further that since childhood
the cave dwellers have had their legs and necks shackled so as to be confined to the same spot. They are further constrained
by blinders that prevent them from turning their heads; they can see only directly in front of them. Next, imagine a light
from a fire some distance behind them and burning at a higher elevation. Between the prisoners and the fire is a raised path
along whose edge there is a low wall like the partition at the front of a puppet stage. The wall conceals the puppeteers while
they manipulate their puppets above it.
So far I can visualize it.
Imagine, further, men behind the wall carrying all sorts of objects along its length and holding them above it. The objects
include human and animal images made of stone and wood and all other material. Presumably, those who carry them sometimes
speak and are sometimes silent.
You describe a strange prison and strange prisoners.
Like ourselves. Tell me, do you not think those men would see only the shadows cast by the fire on the wall of the cave? Would
they have seen anything of themselves or of one another?
How could they if they couldn't move their heads their whole life long?
Could they see the objects held above the wall behind them or only the shadows cast in front?
Only the shadows.
If, then, they could talk with one another, don't you think they would impute reality to the passing shadows?
Necessarily.
Imagine an echo in their prison, bouncing off the wall toward which the prisoners were turned. Should one of those behind
the wall speak, would the prisoners not think that the sound came from the shadows in front of them?
No doubt of it.
By every measure, then, reality for the prisoners would be nothing but shadows cast by artifacts.
It could be nothing else.
Imagine now how their liberation from bondage and error would come about if something like the following happened. One prisoner
is freed from his shackles. He is suddenly compelled to stand up, turn around, walk, and look toward the light. He suffers
pain and distress from the glare of the light. So dazzled is he that he cannot even discern the very objects whose shadows
he used to be able to see. Now what do you suppose he would answer if he were told that all he had seen before was illusion
but that now he was nearer reality, observing real things and therefore seeing more truly? What if someone pointed to the
objects being carried above the wall, questioning him as to what each one is? Would he not be at a loss? Would he not regard
those things he saw formerly as more real than the things now being shown him?
He would.
Then let him be dragged away by force up the rough and steep incline of the cave's passageway, held fast until he is hauled
out into the light of the sun. Would not such a rough passage be painful? Would he not resent the experience? And when he
came out into the sunlight, would he not be dazzled once again and unable to see what he calls realities?
He could not see even one of them, at least not immediately.
Habituation, then, is evidently required in order to see things higher up. In the beginning he would most easily see shadows;
next, reflections in the water of men and other objects. Then he would see the objects themselves. From there he would go
on to behold the heavens and the heavenly phenomena- more easily the moon and stars by night than the sun by day.
Yes.
Finally, I suppose, he would be able to look on the sun itself, not in reflections in the water or in fleeting images in some
alien setting. He would look at the sun as it is, in its own domain, and so be able to see what it is really like.
Yes.
It is at this stage that he would be able to conclude that the sun is the cause of the seasons and of the year's turning,
that it governs all the visible world and is in some sense also the cause of all visible things.
This is surely the next step he would take.
Now, supposing he recalled where he came from. Supposing he thought of his fellow prisoners and of what passed for wisdom
in the place they were inhabiting. Don't you think he would feel pity for all that and rejoice in his own change of circumstance?
He surely would.
Suppose there had been honors and citations those below bestowed upon one another. Suppose prizes were offered for the one
quickest to identify the shadows as they go by and best able to remember the sequence and configurations in which they appear.
All these skills, in turn, would enhance the ability to guess what would come next. Do you think he would covet such rewards.
More, would he envy and want to emulate those who hold power over the prisoners and are in turn reverenced by them? Or would
he not rather hold fast to Homer's words that it is "better to be the poor servant of a poor master," better to
endure anything, than to believe those things and live that way?
I think he would prefer anything to such a life.
Consider, further, if he should go back down again into the cave and return to the place he was before, would not his eyes
now go dark after so leaving the sunlight behind?
They would.
Suppose he should then have to compete once more in shadow watching with those who never left the cave. And this before his
eyes had been accustomed to the dark and his dimmed vision still required a long period of habituation. Would he not be laughed
at? Would it not be said that he had made the journey above only to come back with his eyes ruined and that it is futile even
to attempt the ascent? Further, if anyone tried to release the prisoners and lead them up and they could get their hands on
him and kill him, would they not kill him?
Of course.
Now, my dear Glaucon, we must apply the allegory as a whole to all that has been said so far. The prisoners' cave is the counterpart
of our own visible order, and the light of the fire betokens the power of the sun....
|
