Plato's Republic – Should We Search for the Truth?
There is the common belief that what we experience as reality is just a mere illusion of the truth. Plato's allegory of the cave in "The Republic" describes human beings as being chained in a cave, such that they cannot move but are forced to face a wall, onto which shadows of puppets and themselves are projected. They are deceived into believing that their reality is composed of these "shadows" when actually, the world of truth is the "light" outside the cave. This analogy insinuates the probability that we have been entertaining "false notions" about life, and all our beliefs, ranging from religion to the sciences, are merely representations of the truth. What is this "light" that burns so bright in Plato's eyes? Are we certain that it exists? Because for all we know, life might be nothing but the cave itself.
Plato appears certain of what the "light" beyond the cave will reveal to the one who has made the journey out. Firstly it will provide a means of illumination that will expose the "real existence" of the world. In the brightness of the "light", everything would be seen in their full beauty instead of the vague impressions shadows create. He would receive accurate information about life and therefore dispense with the need to discern between the truth and the lie. Furthermore, he would also see himself in his own "proper place". He would no longer be confused about his identity, role in society or purpose in life, and could then carry out his duties confidently and effectively. Secondly the "light" itself also symbolizes the "idea of good". Since it is mentioned in the allegory that if one were to act "rationally", he would need to rely on the "idea of good". It ca...
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...tion we receive from life. In this case of the allegory, Plato is working on a whole plane of uncertainty as he is neither able to determine the existence of a different reality nor disprove the credibility of our lives. The world as we know it is indeed imperfect but imperfection should not qualify it as being false.
Should we stop all things and embark on the intellectual ascent to the truth? Philosophically, yes. For according to Plato it would be better to "endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner". However it is questionable if the need for knowledge of the truth (which might not even exist) is great enough to justify a journey in search for it. This is a decision we have to make for ourselves.
Works Cited
Plato. Republic. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. 8 Jan. 2001. http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/writing/ccwp11/allegory.htm.
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In Plato’s short story, a group of men have been imprisoned in a dark cave their whole lives and know nothing else, only the shadows on the wall. This leads Plato into questioning, “What do you think he would say if someone told him that what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusion, but now being somewhat nearer and towards more real objects, he was getting a truer view” (Plato 2)? By using this example of light imagery, Plato is showing how knowledge is represented by the light. This is because when the men are in the dark cave they know nothing, only what their senses have been telling them. Plato is trying to get the point across that what you think you know can always be challenged by knowledge. At this point the man comes to the conclusion that everything he once knew isn’t what’s reality. However, the other men in the cave weren’t enlightened like he was, and when he came back down into the cave and his eyes weren’t used to the darkness and, “They would laugh at him and say that he had gone up only to have come back with his sight ruined” (Plato 2). He uses dark imagery representing the ignorance of these men. As mentioned above, the men only know sitting in the obsidian cave watching shadows on the walls, they don’t know about the light the man was exposed to or even the whole other world outside
In the Plato’s allegory of “ The Cave” the Shadow refers to the illusion of
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Though it takes time, the prisoner is able to adjust; Stephen Buckle writes, “Speak of ‘mental gaze’: an expression which evokes precisely the metaphor of a mental vision – of knowing as seeing with ‘the mind’s eye’ – that is a cornerstone of Plato’s allegory of the sun” (Buckle 313). Along with the “Allegory of the Cave,” comes the “Allegory of Light,” which serves its purpose of emphasizing Plato’s views, “The sun reaches its greatest development as a symbol in Plato,” (James A. Notopoulos 223). The light, moreover, serves as a means of finding reality, something the prisoner strives to do and teach his fellow prisoners about (finding the light). Additionally, the abstract understanding of both fire and light can be linked to Plato’s ideas of enlightenment. Plato writes, “Then, the release from the bonds and the turning around from the shadows to the phantoms and the light, the way up from the cave to the sun; and, once there, the persisting inability to look at the animals and the plants and the sun’s light, and looking instead at the divine appearances in water and at the shows of the things that are…” (Bloom 211). Furthermore, the concept of the sun serves an important element in the “Allegory of the Cave,” as it resembles a higher source, or as Plato would say, a pure form. Notopoulos writes, “He therefore found in the sun of Greek tradition a highly developed
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Milton Friedman. (1970, September 13). The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits. The New York Times Magazine. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company.
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Carroll, A. (1991). The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Toward the Moral Management of Organizational Stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39-48.