{"id":690,"date":"2026-03-19T18:02:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/?p=690"},"modified":"2026-03-21T21:11:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T11:11:03","slug":"the-allegory-of-the-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/2026\/03\/19\/the-allegory-of-the-cave\/","title":{"rendered":"The Allegory of the Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plato\u2019s allegory in Republic<\/em> 514a<\/sup>-517a<\/sup> can be summarised as follows<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Location<\/span><\/td>\nOutside the Cave<\/span><\/td>\nInside the Cave<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Light<\/span><\/td>\nSun<\/span><\/td>\nFire<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reveals<\/span><\/td>\nReal things<\/span><\/td>\nShadows and Images of things<\/span><\/td>\nModels of real things<\/span><\/td>\nShadows of models of things<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Symbolizes<\/span><\/td>\nThe Good<\/span><\/td>\nThe Sun<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reveals<\/span><\/td>\nForms<\/span><\/td>\nReal things as instances of the Forms<\/span><\/td>\nReal things as perceptible particulars<\/span><\/td>\nPerceptions of perceptible things<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Population<\/span><\/td>\nFree men<\/span><\/td>\nEscapees<\/span><\/td>\nRevolutionaries<\/span><\/td>\nPrisoners<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cognitions<\/span><\/td>\nPhilosophy<\/span><\/td>\nHypothetical thinking<\/span><\/td>\nExpert opinion<\/span><\/td>\nCommon opinion<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Status<\/span><\/td>\nKnowledge (\u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b7)<\/span><\/td>\nOpinion (\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03b1)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Realm<\/span><\/td>\nIntelligibilia<\/span><\/td>\nSensibilia (The Visible World)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

FM Cornford comments (in The Republic of Plato<\/em> p. 222) that the image of the world as a cave is used by Empedocles<\/a> (ll. 119\/120 on pp. 266, 267) who says ‘\u2019\u03b7\u03bb\u03c5\u03b8\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03b4\u2019 \u2018\u03c5\u03c0\u2019 \u2019\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u2018\u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd,’ \u2018we came down into this roofed-in cave\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point of the Cave image is to describe the stages and the difficulty of the advance from mere opinion to knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plato\u2019s allegory in Republic 514a-517a can be summarised as follows Location Outside the Cave Inside the Cave Light Sun Fire Reveals Real things Shadows and Images of things Models of real things Shadows of models of things Symbolizes The Good The Sun Reveals Forms Real things as instances of the Forms Real things as perceptible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}