Are we all just cavemen?

Hello,

Plato's a classic philosopher - and to be honest one of the most famous... If you don't know the name I guarantee you'll know the face. 

Plato and his cave.  It was thought up by Plato to basically explain truth and knowledge. It was also a ploy he devised to try and convince the government to pass over the reins of power to philosophers. 

This is the set up of Plato's Allegory of the Cave: 

Assume you have been imprisoned all your life in a dark cave. Your hands and feet are tied and your head can not move and as a result you can only look at the wall in front of you. Behind you is a huge fire, and between you and the fire there is space for your guards to carry objects back and fourth. The shadows cast on the wall by these objects are the only thing you and the others  have ever seen, all you have ever thought and talked about.  

 'The Cave' (375bc) has got to be one of the most well known analogies used by the Greek philosopher Plato. It is used to help us understand our perception of the world. It shows how we see the ideal state and the ideal ruler (philosophy being the idea ruler). 

Still not entirely sure what he means? Well this is the rest of the allegory...

Now suppose that you are  free to walk around the cave. You see the fire for the first time. You then see the objects which create the shadows, which you previously took to be real. Finally you are allowed to step outside the cave and for the first time you see the world in the fullness of reality. Illuminated by the brightest object in the skies, the sun.

Interpreting the cave: There are numerous interpretations of the cave, but the general interpretation is that the 'cave' represents the 'realm of becoming'. The 'realm of becoming' is the world we live in: ever changing and imperfect (different shadows etc). The chained prisoners are the human race, people with an imperfect view of the world, these shackled people we will never fully understand the world. 

This is in contrast to the released prisoner who has gained knowledge due to the fact they walk around the cave therefore enabling them to gain an accurate view of the cave (i.e - the actual objets causing the shadows). 

When they step out of the cave to the outside world they are now in the 'realm of being'. This world is one of truth - filled with perfect, eternal and unchanging objects. The shackled prisoners will never see this world  (unless of course... they become philosophers). So the majority of us humans are still in the cave, so much for evolution.

Plato is still not satisfied - he says that there is a problem with forms ('forms' here just means ideas). In Plato's view what is known is true and unchanging. But according to Plato nothing in the empirical world is true and unchanging (the empirical world is the cave). This is shown via a tall person is short next to a tree or a red apple looks looks black at dusk and so on. To Plato this means that nothing in the empirical world is an object of knowledge - therefore there must be another realm (outside the cave). This realm contains perfect 'forms' .

Still don't get it... click here to watch a video.