Imagine that there are people living in a cave deep underground.
The cave has a mouth that opens to the light above, and a passage exists from this all
the way down to the people.
They have lived here, as captives, from infancy, with their legs and necks bound in chains.
They cannot move.
All they can do is stare directly forward, as the chains stop them from turning their
heads around.
Imagine that far above and behind them blazes a great fire.
Between this fire and the captives, a low wall is erected along a path, something like
puppeteers use to hide themselves during their shows.
Look and you will also see other people carrying objects back and forth along the wall, things
of every kind: statues and other carvings made of stone or wood and many other artifacts
that people have made.
Some of these other people speak, while others remain silent.
It’s a bizarre situation and a bizarre group of captives.
From the beginning the captives have never managed, whether on their own or with the
help of others, to see anything besides the shadows that are continually projected on
the wall in front of them by the glow of the fire.
Now, if they could speak, would you say that these captives would imagine that the names
they gave to the things they were able to see applied to real things?
It would have to be so.
And if a sound reverberated through their cave from one of the other people passing
behind the small wall, do you suppose that the captives would think anything but the
passing shadow was what really made the sound?
I guess not.
Then, undoubtedly, such captives would consider the truth to be nothing but the shadows of
the moving objects and their sounds.
Now look again, and think about what would happen if they were released from these chains
and these misconceptions.
Imagine one of them is set free from his shackles and immediately made to stand up and turn
his head around, to take steps, to gaze up toward the fire.
And all of this was painful, and the glare from the light made him unable to see the
objects that cast the shadows.
What do you think his reaction would be if someone informed him that everything he had
formerly known was illusion and delusion, but that now he was a few steps closer to
reality, oriented now toward things that were more authentic, and he was able to see more truly?
Now, let’s say that he is forcibly dragged up the steep climb out of the cave, and started
climbing until finally he stands in the light of the sun.
Don’t you think that he would feel overwhelmed and even begin to complain?
Under that light, wouldn’t his eyes be nearly blinded, unable to discern any of those things
that we ourselves call real?
It would take time, I suppose, for him to get used to seeing reality as it is.
In the beginning, he might only trace the shadows of the outside world.
Then, reflections of people and other things in the water.
Next, he would come to see the actual form of things themselves.
Then he would behold the celestial objects, and the sky itself, especially by night, seeing
the light of the stars and the moon with greater ease than the sun and its light by day.
And at some point, I think, he would at last be able to gaze upon the sun itself—neither
as reflected in water, nor as a shadow in some other place, but in its own place as
it really is.
And now, he will begin to reason.
He will find that the sun is the source for the seasons and the years, and governor of
every visible thing, and is ultimately the origin of everything previously known, so to speak.
In that case, shouldn’t he remember his fellow prisoners and their original dwelling
and what was accepted as wisdom in that setting?
Don’t you imagine he would consider himself fortunate for this transformation, and feel pity for the captives?
If such a man would go back to his original place inside the cave,
wouldn’t his eyes be filled with darkness coming back from the sun?
Wouldn’t his eyes still be adjusting to the darkness,
and it may take a while before they can see the shadows again?
Wouldn’t he become a laughing-stock for the other captives?
Wouldn’t they say, “You have returned from your adventure up there with ruined eyes!”
Would they not say that the ascent was a waste of time?
And if he attempted to free them and push them to escape the cave, don’t you think
that they might even try to kill him for this?
This allegory attempts to compare the visible world to the underground cave, and the captive’s
ascent to be the ascent of the soul to the intellectual world.
Regardless, it appears to me that in the world of knowledge, the Idea of Good appears last
of all, and it is perceived with great difficulty.
But, when it is seen, it leads us directly to the finding of the universal cause of all
that is right and beautiful. It is the source of visible light, and in the intellectual
world it is the master of truth and reason.
And whoever, in private or in public, would behave in a sensible way, will have his eyes
fixed on this idea.
We should not be surprised that individuals who have reached this level of understanding
might be unwilling to spend their time on mundane affairs, for their souls would always
feel a calling for the higher things.
The ability and means of learning is already present in the soul.
As the eye could not turn from darkness to light unless the whole body moved, so it is
that the mind can only turn around from the world of becoming to that of Being by a movement
of the whole soul.
The soul must learn, degree by degree, by slowly turning towards the light, to endure
the contemplation of Being and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of what
we consider as the greater good.
Hey guys,
Hoped you enjoyed this visual representation of the allegory of the cave, which is a short
story that can be found in the book republic, by Plato.
This is an abridged version of a translation I found online. I tried to change it a bit
so that it has a better flow, because the original text, even in Greek, sometimes sounds
weird, but that’s normal because in every epoch people speak in different ways.
For me, the allegory of the cave is an incredible philosophical text because of the symbolisms
that illuminate so many powerful ideas.
Obviously, the text can be interpreted in many ways, but I will offer the overarching idea.
The prisoners represent all of us, all individuals who are trapped in a kind of prosaic, simplistic,
and just sensory interpretation of the world.
The puppeteers could represent all these people or institutions that attempt to impose certain
narratives upon us. The chains allude to all those things that
keep us shackled in a very limited intellectual and perceptual understanding of the world
around us.
The cave is this limited world that keeps us trapped and the shadows are the only things
we perceive as real, because of all the limitations that we have.
So, at some point, one prisoner somehow escapes and gains access to the outer world, which
symbolizes the absolute truth, which is quite abstract, but, in short, one can define this
truth as the truth disengaged from illusions, delusions, propaganda, lies, and absurdities.
Plato makes three important points in this allegory, with regards to the truth.
Number one, that it takes time to get accustomed to the truth and eventually reengineer one’s
perception in order to understand it and accept it.
Number two, that once one sees the truth and accepts it, one can never go back to their
former state.
And number three, that the truth can be perceived as something dangerous by some people, because,
often, the truth hurts so much that people will feel that it's not worth risking what
they have for something so precarious.
Undoubtedly this is an incredible text that echoes many visceral ideas that have troubled
us throughout the history of mankind.
Hope you enjoyed the video.
If you did, please make sure to like, subscribe, get notifications, and leave a comment, and,
if you feel like, please support the channel. Your support means the world to me and I try
to upload high quality videos that are very difficult to find elsewhere on YouTube.
There are many ways to do so, check all the available options in the description below.
Again, thanks for watching.
See you soon.
Adrian out.