ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

                                 By T K Jayaraman (Rtd IRS)

Teaches Western Philosophy English and French at Indian Institute of World Culture Bengaluru

 

Allegory is a literary device such as a story, poem or event which conveys a hidden message or idea which can be philosophical, spiritual or moral. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is well known to all students of Western philosophy. It reads like this. Imagine an underground cave In which a group of prisoners are chained and able to see only what is in front of them. Behind the prisoners there is a fire in front of which men walk carrying objects that cast shadow on the walls of the cave. Since all they have been exposed to are these images, the prisoners naturally come to think that the shadows on the wall are reality. But in a dramatic twist, Plato has one of the prisoners escape from the darkness of the cave. At first, he is blinded by the bright light of the sun, but after his eyes adjust, he comes to realise that what he’s experiencing outside the cave is reality and all he thought to be real was mere illusion. Feeling pity for his fellow men, he goes back to the cave to liberate them. The other prisoners were not willing to listen to him. On the contrary, they kill him and they were convinced that the shadows are the only reality. We are all like the prisoners of the cave satisfied with the images. It is the philosopher who like the escapee prisoner tries to show us the reality. The philosopher breaks free of the chains of ignorance to ascend to the World of Forms. In Plato’s philosophy what we perceive by the senses is not fully real. The reality is in the realm of immutable Forms. In another post I will explain the Theory of Forms.