Republic (Penguin Classics) by Plato

Author:Plato [Plato]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-09-27T05:00:00+00:00

Book VII begins [Book E]

‘Next’, I said, ‘think of our nature in relation to education, [514a] and the lack of it, in terms of the following image. Imagine human beings as if they were in a cave-like dwelling underground, with a broad opening to the daylight across the whole width of the cave. They have been there since childhood, chained not just by their legs but by their necks, so [514b] that they can’t move and can only look ahead of them – the neck-chain makes it impossible for them to turn their heads round. Light reaches them from a fire that burns way above and behind them; and in between the fire and the prisoners, high above, there is a path across the cave, beside which you need to imagine a little wall, built like those screens puppeteers have in front of their audience so that they can show their puppets above them.’

‘Done,’ he said.

[514c] ‘Next, along this little wall, imagine people carrying a whole collection of manufactured objects that stick up above it, [515a] including human statues and representations of other kinds of creatures fashioned out of wood and stone and all sorts of other things; as you’d expect, some of the carriers are speaking, others are silent.’457

‘A strange picture’, he said, ‘– and strange prisoners!’

‘Ones that resemble us,’ I said, ‘since first of all do you think people in that condition will have seen anything of themselves or of each other except for their shadows, cast by the fire on to the surface of the cave in front of them?’

[515b] ‘How could they,’ he asked, ‘if they were prevented from moving their heads even once in their whole lives?’

‘And what about the things being carried along the wall? Won’t it be the same with them?’

‘Of course.’

‘So if the prisoners were able to have conversations with each other, don’t you think they’d label whatever they were seeing in front of them as what those things actually are?’458

‘They’d have to.’

‘And what if the prison gave off an echo from in front of them? Whenever any of those passing along the wall behind them said something, do you think the prisoners could suppose it came from anywhere except from the shadow passing before them?’

‘Zeus!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t see how they could.’

[515c]‘So from every point of view,’ I said, ‘what people in that situation would think of as the truth would be nothing but the shadows of the manufactured objects behind them.’

‘They couldn’t avoid doing so.’

‘Now think what it might be like for them to be released from their chains and cured of their mindlessness. Suppose something like this really happened: one of them was set free, and was suddenly forced to stand up, twist his neck round, then try to walk, and look towards the source of the light. Given that he would be in pain as he did all this, and unable [515d] because of the glare to see the actual things that cast the shadows he used

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