Plato's Cave: A Brief Reflection

These are just some reflections on Plato's story about the man in a cave... first half is summary of what happened and the second half is just some thoughts. I hope you enjoy~

This section of the book starts out with a telling of a story of a man who has been kept in a dark cave for his entire life. The only available view he has of anything that is going on around him is a shadow, not unlike the ones created by children standing behind a sheet and using a light to make shadows and tell a story though that. Plato makes the point that if all the man knows are these shadows, then how is he to know that these shadows are not real and that they are made by other objects? To the man, these shadows would appear to be the ultimate reality, as this is all he knows.

As time passes, the man is allowed to see the objects that create the shadows, but is still kept in the cave. Now, he might believe that the shadows created are not the ultimate reality, but rather these objects that created these shadows. Although this is a slightly more accurate view of the world, he has still not seen any real objects; that is, to say that the items he is seeing are merely an imitation of their counterparts in the real world. Instead of seeing a live dog, he might be seeing a paper cut-out of a canine and before, he would have seen the shadow of this paper cut-out. In order to experience the real object, the man must be allowed to leave the cave.

Plato then continues to explain that the man is allowed to leave the cave and sees his own reflection in a lake and is able to view such objects as the trees, the sun and everything else that a regular person would be used to seeing. He makes the case that since the person has been living in a cave and watching shadows for his entire life, it will take a fair amount of adjustment to seeing real objects. He must get used to one object (ie, the sun) before he can get accustomed to the world at large and before he can learn to function in such a place.

This analogy is a familiar one, as it can be likened to a Christian living in this world. To a Christian, the ultimate reality is what is to come when the new Heaven and new Earth are created. What a Christian sees in this world is merely a shadow or a faulty imitation of this ultimate reality. The edges are blurred and people have no definite way of knowing whether or not what they see is real.

The idea of having to spend time to grow accustomed to physical stimuli draws a strong comparison to what happens in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce. In this story, the narrator takes a journey from a town where the ultimate reality is thoughts and where people construct their houses simply by wishing for a house, but these houses are little more than shadows and do not protect them from the weather. As he journeys into Heaven, he notes that the sun is much too bright for many of the passengers and how the grass is sharp enough to cut his feet. He must spend time in this new place to get accustomed to the reality.

If a person believes in the Christian philosophy that what he sees here on Earth is not the ultimate reality and is merely a shadow of things to come, he must prepare himself or, like the man in the cave or the narrator in The Great Divorce, this reality (that is, Heaven) will come as a shock.

What is so fascinating about this story that Plato relates to the listener is how many different ways it can be interpreted. Here was a man who lived in the time of the ancient Greek empire and obviously had no knowledge of the Judeo-Christian themes and heritage, yet Christians have used this point to argue that what happens on Earth is not the ultimate reality. Even CS Lewis, arguably one of the greatest Christian apologists of all time and most certainly in the twentieth century, draws inspiration from this piece that was written over two thousand years prior.

Another interesting thing to note is that, while Christian arguments have probably used this illustration by Plato more often than arguments for other religions, Plato’s analogy does not necessarily point to the higher reality that is described by Christianity; it merely makes the case that a higher reality is possible and that in order to fully experience it, one must take the time to prepare himself for all possibilities.

Ways of Knowing

While I'm waiting for my lunch to finish cooking, I'll spend a few minutes and talk about how we can come to know what we know. [As a side note, this is more exciting than doing physics problems, but less exciting than opening up my copy of The Screwtape Letters and reading a bit, but will probably take about the same amount of thought as either.] We all know things, right? Well, let's just assume that everyone does know at least something, but how do we, as people, come across that knowledge?

There are actually at least four ways (categories, actually), but I'm really only going to cover two of them because in my opinion, they're the two most interesting. Just because they're worth mentioning, the other two are authoritarianism (ie, learning from textbooks or what people say) and innatism (something that all humans know).

The first way I'm going to talk about is empiricism, which is through observation of ones own senses. This seems to be the favoured way in the modern world. People are comfortable with what they see, hear, touch, taste and smell and they rely on their senses to relay accurate information to their brains and then they can logically form conclusions based on those perceptions. Empiricism is especially common in science, where measurements must be made.

The second way I find noteworthy enough to talk about a bit is intuitionism. This one is a bit trickier because it can't apply to every situation. Commonly called a "gut reaction" or "sixth sense" or (as I often put it) a "hunch", this way of knowing things can't usually be rationalised and it varies from person to person, though I have witnessed at least one situation where two people had the same intuition, though in very different ways. For one person, it came all of a sudden and hit like the force of a soccer ball to the stomach and to the other person, it was that sneaking suspicion that something wasn't right, but without knowledge as to what was the problem or why (or how) he knew. [Yes, by default, I use masculine pronouns when I refer to people. The people I'm talking about when I do this aren't always male. Sorry if that bothers you. Deal with it.]

From personal experience (empiricism!), I've found that most people rely more on empiricism than on intuition. Why? It's able to be verified by other sources and it gets things done. Which is important in modern day America (and Canada and Europe, etc.). However, I've actually found that I prefer intuition (when it is available). This is because it has helped me immensely in a lot of ways, namely solving scientific problems and dealing with people.

But as many things in life go, one aspect relies on another. If you just had empricism, this would be slow and you'd probably never get much of anything done! If you relied solely on intuition, you wouldn't have a way to back up your claims; people wouldn't believe what you have to say. [If you don't believe me on that, go try explaining to your science teacher that the reason why you think feeding salt water to pea plants is because "it feels right"!] No, how I believe that it should work is that you observe something (ie, people who eat apples are healthier than those who don't). Your intuition provides what some scientific types may call a "leap in logic" (ie, that apples reduce the risk of heart disease). But not many people would believe you if you just went on the news and said that. [At least, I hope they wouldn't, even if it is true!] You need to rely on empiricism to come up with evidence (ie, study patients at risk for heart disease and feed some of them apples and some of them oranges and then see if there are any differences in prevalence of heart attacks).

Does that make sense? That's how intuition can be applied in a scientific manner, where science is a field that is littered with empiricism. The field of interpersonal dynamics (ie, how people interact with others) is an area much better suited for intuition, but unfortunately not everyone has that. Yet another failure of my favourite epistemology... for all its failures and possible shortcomings, intuition has provided me with the valuable insight that I wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

Ironically, many things in the universe exist in dichotemies, like Faith and Science, Pathos and Logos (this one is fun because Ethos creates a third player), Truth and Love... the list goes on and on. I'll have to make this a separate blog entry (at another time!) and talk about ways these pairs (and pairs like them) can interact.

Well, I'm off to finish eating and do a few more things before I head back to class. Anyhow, if you have any ideas that you'd like me to cover on blog topics, please leave a comment and let me know! Since the majority of my classes this term are philosophy-related, I'll probably be drawing inspiration from class discussions and the like, but I'm always open to new ideas. <3