9/17 The Republic (#3b)

Plato was one of the greatest philosophers of our world. This ability to complicate what could be considered a perfectly simple idea to the point of intangibility was noteworthy. In the same way Plato could take an extremely intangible idea and with poetic allegory explain himself in a firm concrete way. One place this can be observed is in his work “The Republic.”

The Divided Line & the Sun

In “The Republic” Plato uses the sun to represent a power greater than truth, allowing truth to be illuminated by its light, which allows the “knower” to “draw his ability to know” (819). Since this is a noble act, helping the knower, the sun can be considered ” character of the good” (819). Plato makes it very clear that the light that illuminates truth is like the sun, but is not the sun. For the cause of light, the sun, is the “cause of knowledge and truth” and “itself surpasses them in beauty” (819).

Plato continues with his illustrations describing how the light from the sun is used to illuminate different forms in our world. Often the form that the light shines upon cannot be viewed directly. So to understand that form its shadow must be observed and an assumption can be made about that form. The assumption can be used to make other assumptions about other forms that cannot be view directly. To categorize those forms that can be understood or viewed directly and those forms who can only have assumptions made of them, Plato uses a segmented line. In “The Republic,” the segmented line is a strong tool for Plato’s explanations of the knower’s ability to use the sun to understand the forms of the world.

Allegory of the Cave

Another great allegory is that of the cave. Its full explanation is to long for this medium. If, you choose not to look directly at it you will be left to try to make assumptions about it by the shadow that will be described now.

The cave is the world that mankind could be living in ignorance. Mankind would only see shadows and would assume that these shadows are the forms, when in fact that they are just shadows of the true forms. Plato continues to explain that if a person should escape the cave and see the forms that had casted the shadows of his world, he would be blinded and want, at first, to flee and return to the comfort of the familiar shadows. Later, that person would do anything to not return to the cave, understanding how small and fake the cave was. Should the person return to the cave they would, at first, be blind in the dark and mocked by the ignorant life long cave dwellers. The returned individual would try to explain there is a complete unseen world out there and all that you see now in here is merely a small shadow of the world. The other life long cave dwellers would think this person was mad and would be likely to kill the crazy talker. Plato finishes by saying only God could know if this is the case in the world we live in.