Allegory of the Cave

Theory of Forms
Which is which?

What are they doing with

their hands?

Where are they?

 Greek Philosophers (500BC – 200BC) Timeline The
Great
Three

Plato, 20, meets Socrates, 60

Plato
(429 - 347)

500 BC 200 BC

Socrates
(469 - 399)
What is an allegory?

It’s a story that teaches you about something other

than what is in the story.

What is an analogy?

A comparison made to show a similarity.

Plato’s Cave Allegory has a number of purposes:
1. distinguish appearance from reality
 it is possible to have the wrong understanding of the
things we see, hear, feel, etc.
2. explain enlightenment
 moving from ‘shadows’ to ‘the real’
 involves pain, confusion
 makes you an outcast
 is a one-way trip
 improves you, but
 makes you a nerd
 makes you mentally clumsy
 cannot be taught, you must see
for yourself
Plato’s Cave Allegory has a number of purposes:
1. distinguish appearance from reality
2. explain enlightenment
3. introduce the Theory of Forms (or Ideas)
 the allegory provides for an analogy:
 as shadows are to physical things, physical things are to
the Forms (Ideas)
Prisoners – represent all individuals as
souls trapped in a sensory world.
Puppet-Masters – represent individuals and
organizations who construct
knowledge.
Chains – represents anything that keeps
the individuals from having the
freedom to learn.
The Cave – represents the sensory or
superficial world, in which
individual simply react to the
information that is presented to
them.
The Outside World – represents the higher
level of understanding, where
“forms” or truths that are
unchanging.
The Teacher – represents those individuals
who wish to enlighten others,
and have the ability to compel
learning.
The Fire – a source of manufactured light.
It represents manufactured
information/beliefs. These may
be true or untrue, t it is still passed
on from others.
Shadows – represent the knowledge/beliefs
we gain from others and accept
as truths.
The Rough Ascent – represent the process
of letting go of old beliefs and
beginning to accept new ones. It
is a difficult process because we do
not want it.
Sun – universal symbol of truth,
knowledge. and or goodness.
The Moon – represents “reflected”
goodness/truth or knowledge.
Just as the moon does not show the
true form of objects, the
goodness/truth/knowledge
gained is not complete
understanding.
The Objects – to Plato, these represented
the “Forms” –the highest kinds of
eternal truth—as revealed by the
true source of
goodness/truth/knowledge.
In virtue of what are these two things red?

It’s not the paint, dye, pigment, light waves, frequency of waves, etc.,
that makes the circle on the left red, that makes the circle on the right
red, because all that stuff is over there (on the left) rather than over
here (on the right) … similarly, it’s not the paint, dye, pigment, light
waves, frequency of waves, etc., that makes the circle on the right red,
that makes the circle on the left red, because all that stuff is over here
(on the right), rather than over there (on the left).

So, in virtue of what are they both red?

Notice that ‘red’ is a singular term … the subject is plural, but the
predicate is singular! These are not ‘reds’. How can this be?!
How then, can two things be one thing?!
In virtue of what are these two things circular?

It’s not the curve of the border that makes the circle on the left circular
that makes the circle on the right circular, because that curve of the
border is over there (on the left) rather than over here (on the right) …
similarly, it’s not the curve of the border that makes the circle on the
right circular that makes the circle on the left circular because that
curve of the border is over here (on the right), rather than over there
(on the left).

So, in virtue of what are they both circular?

Notice that ‘circular’ is a singular term … these are not ‘circulars’!
How then, can two things be one thing?!
Plato thinks we need universals to account for our
knowledge. If, as Heraclitus said, the only thing real is flux
or change, then we couldn’t know anything (nothing our
thoughts were about would match our thoughts, since
what underlies our thoughts is always changing).

Consider the statement:

blue is darker than yellow

What would happen if every blue and yellow thing winked

out of existence? Would the statement be false?
Plato believed that these Forms, or Universals, are:

 Eternal
 Unchanging
 Necessary (exist [subsist?] necessarily)

If they were not so, ‘blue is darker than yellow’ and

the truths about geometry, and innumerable
others, could all be false. But, when you think
hard about them, they apparently cannot be false.
Qualities Relations Kinds
colors • lighter/darker • animal
shapes • rounder/squarer • vertebrate
sounds • higher/lower • human
textures • rougher/smoother • metal
temps • sweeter/sourer • steel
flavors • under • apple
odors • over • book
aspects of all • between • sandwich
etc. • etc. • etc.
Where are these Forms?

Because everything in space and time

 comes into being at some time and in some place, and
 goes out of being at some time and in some place,
the Forms, eternal and unchanging, must be outside
space and time.

Some call this place Plato’s Heaven

Some call the Forms Divine Ideas
Problem:

How do Plato’s non-temporal, non-spatial, eternal, unchanging

Forms interact with the temporal, spatial, temporary, changing
world of our experience?

Plato tells us: by a relation of ‘participation’ or ‘sharing’

Another way to say it, Forms are ‘instantiated’ in physical things.

 This red thing has an instance of redness,
 this ‘being in between’ is an instance of inbetweeness,
 this dog is an instance of dogness.

But, how do physical things participate in Forms? Or, how are the
Forms instantiated in things?