Plato

Plato, "Allegory of the Cave"

Plato (428-347 B.C.) was the student of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and one of the most important thinkers who ever lived. Plato, among many other things, can be seen as the father of the Idealist school of philosophy. This philosophical system attempted to show a rational relationship between people, government, and the universe, ruled by the ideals of what is good, true, and beautiful. Basic tenets of this branch of philosophy are that anything we perceive is but a mere reflection of the truth, and that the interaction of the ideal version and the perceived thing determine human consciousness. Plato's dialogue "Allegory of the Cave" is taken from the Republic. Here, Socrates, who is endeavoring to determine the relationship between the "real world" and our perception of it, is the dialectic questioner of Glaucon.

CONTENT

1. What is the only thing the prisoners can see?
2. Describe the central image mentioned in paragraph one.
3. For the prisoners, what constitutes the truth?
4. According to Plato, in the world of knowledge what idea "appears last of all"?
5. Who is Homer?
6. What are the two kinds of "bewilderments of the eyes" that Plato describes? What are their two causes?
7. Describe the process a liberated prisoner undergoes. What changes in perception take place? What happens when he goes back down to the cave?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Where in this dialogue does Plato put the whole allegory together? Discuss the function of the relevant paragraph in light of this placement. What comes after this paragraph?
2. Discuss this piece as a process essay. What process is being explained, and how does Plato analyze it? What types of support does he provide for his main points?
3. Characterize Glaucon's role in this dialogue. What work do his remarks do here? Whose voice do you suppose his is?

1. Draw a picture of Plato's cave and its inhabitants. Did this exercise change the way you looked at this reading? Explain.
2. Recall a situation when you felt you observed something clearly, but it turned out to be quite different from you thought it was in the first place. How can you tie in this memory with "The Allegory of the Cave"?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. Pick one of the major oppositions presented in this essay—illusion/reality, light/dark, high/low—and write a comparison/contrast essay exploring the nature of that duality. Incorporate Plato's ideas and your own insights into your writing.
2. Why are we still reading Plato? How are his ideas still relevant today? Take the central concept that we are still prisoners to the "world of sight" and write an essay exploring this idea in modern times.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Do some research to find one philosopher within the past five hundred years who was deeply influenced by Plato, and whose work interests you. Which philosopher did you pick? When did he or she live? What was Plato's main influence on his or her work? What did your philosopher add to the discussion?

WEB CONNECTION

To understand a writer's work often it's important to understand something about where he or she lived and worked. To help you deepen your understanding of Plato in this regard, here's the homepage for a website dealing with ancient Athens.

LINKS

Biographical

This is a good start page for Plato. Here, you'll find a detailed biography with embedded links and some links to other Plato pages on the Web. It's a good place to start your internet research.

Here's a biography from ThinkQuest.org, which is split up into different thematic categories. It starts with a personal history and then examines how Plato viewed things such as freedom and morality. How trustworthy is the information here? How can you tell?

Wondering what the great philosopher might have looked like? Here's a photo of a bust of Plato in the Vatican Museum.

Bibliographical

Here's "The Cave" in etext. This is the Jowett translation, and it includes links to related Internet resources. Take a look at it and see if working with etext offers you any advantage over using hard copy.

Here is The Dialogues of Plato in etext, from the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library. Do you consider this a reliable text? Why or why not? How can you tell?

Hungry for more online reading? Well, here's a large list of Plato's works that can be found on the Internet.

Cultural

If you'd like to zero in on one aspect of Athens and visualize it, here are some maps and drawings of the Acropolis and the Theater of Dionysus.

Interested in putting the writings of Plato into a political context? This is the Columbia Encyclopedia entry for the Thirty Tyrants. Did you click on the embedded links found there, too? How does Plato figure in here?

Here is a reproduction of The School of Athens by Raphael, as well as some info about the painting. Where are Plato and Aristotle found in the painting? What do you make of their placement?