Tina Bai
Knowledge, Reality, Self
Professor Georg Theiner
10/1/12

The Implication of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”

In The Republic, Plato reveals the overwhelming ignorance of humanity through the allegory of the cave. Plato summarizes his viewpoint of society as a whole through this allegory, portraying the human race as imprisoned in the chains of oblivion, unaware of its own inhibited perspective. A more contemporary philosopher, Umberto Eco, also criticized the state of society in a similar fashion in Travels in Hyperrreality; describing the overwhelming trend of “horror vacui.” The allegory of the cave reveals the importance of education in the journey towards enlightenment-only through instruction can individuals recall the inherent knowledge of the Forms. The significance of the allegory is rooted in Plato’s belief that there exist inherent truths hidden under the superficial surface of society that only enlightened individuals can uncover through education.
Plato’s allegory of the cave follows as thus: A cluster of prisoners, having been enclosed in a cave since birth, has never laid eyes on any kind of daylight. Furthermore, these individuals are prevented from turning their heads to look to either side by their bonds, and can consequently only envision what lies straight ahead. Lying posterior to the shackled prisoners is a fire which is subsequently anterior to a wall. A collection of statues sojourn on the top of the wall and are manipulated by a separate group of people, hidden from the prisoners’ sight. As a result of the light the fire provides, the statues cast their shadows on the wall that the prisoners are forced to face. The prisoners watch the scenarios that these shadows on the wall act out, and since the shadows are all they can ever see, the prisoners view the shadows as the highest form of reality in the world, and attribute the voices of the hidden humans to the shadows.
Plato then proceeds to ask the reader to imagine that one of the prisoners is released from bondage, and is thus able to view his surroundings and see the fire and the statues on the wall behind it. After initial incomprehension, the prisoner eventually realizes the truth-This individual now recognizes the shadows as mere copies and sees the fire and statues as the real forms of actuality. The prisoner then proceeds to exit the cave into what lies above it. At first, he is so blinded by the daylight that he can only look at shadows. He then moves on to see reflections, and then finally physical objects; real flowers, houses, trees etc. The prisoner then realizes that these tangible objects hold an even higher form of reality than the statues, now only mere imitations, did. When the prisoner’s eyes are fully adjusted to the brightness of the sun, he can finally shift his field of vision upwards towards the sky. In viewing the sun, the former prisoner finally understands that the sun is the ultimate reality, and thus the cause of his surroundings-of the daylight, of his ability to see, and ultimately, of the existence of nature, and all other objects.
The various stages that the prisoner passes though in the allegory of the cave correspond to the different levels on Plato’s divided line schema. The line is split into two equal halves, the visible realm and the invisible realm: the visible realm can be sensed in a physical way, i.e. through touch, sight, smelt etc., while the invisible realm can only be comprehended through one’s mental psyche. Whilst still confined in the cave, the prisoner remains in the visible, physical, realm. However, after being freed and then ascending into the outside world, the prisoner enters the invisible realm.
The lowest level on the visible half of the divided line is imagination. In the allegory of the cave, this is represented in the position of the bound prisoner who can only see the shadows projected on the wall he faces. What the prisoner accepts as reality is, in actuality, the furthest thing from it; the shapes projected on the wall are not real at all but rather mere images. After the prisoner is freed and then sets his sights on the statues, he reaches the next stage in the line: rhetorical belief or conviction. The statues represent the real objects that we can physically sense, such as real people, flowers, grass etc. An individual in the visible realm stage of rhetorical belief is apt to mistake these objects of human sensation as the most real objects.
When the prisoner finally escapes the confines of the cave into the outside world, he transcends from the visible realm into the invisible one. The prisoner is initially in the first level of the invisible half of the divided line: Mathematical Understanding. Though he has escaped from the cave, the prisoner is dazzled by the sunlight and can thus only see shadows. The shadows represent the Forms, of which the physical objects in the outside realm are imperfect copies of. Finally, the prisoner sees the sun, which symbolizes the absolute Form-the Form of the Good “the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual” (Plato). All other Forms stem from this one as the Form of the Good encompasses all that is “good”, such as allure and rectitude, in the world. Consequently, it is the pinnacle of knowledge.
It then follows that after the prisoner has become conscious of the ultimate form, he has reached the uppermost level of reasoning: insight. Being an enlightened being, the prior prisoner can use his fostered understanding of the Form of the Good to transform all his previous fallacies into true comprehension-he can now fully comprehend all the Forms. According to Plato, “the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good” (Plato). In other words, the knowledge of the “good” has always existed and it was only a matter of if the prisoners were able to recall prior information through external aid: Education releases humans from the suppression of obliviousness. Very few, such as philosophers, can obtain true enlightenment even when prompted and, subsequently, the majority of humans remain imprisoned by their own ignorance. A more modern philosopher, Umberto Eco, also touched on the ignorance of human beings, and, more specifically, Americans. Eco describes his trip to America as a journey in a search for the “hyperreal” or the “Absolute fake,” in which copies do not merely reflect reality, but rather attempt to refine it. Consequently, his pilgrimage leads him to the “absolutely fake cites” Disneyland and Disney World, with their boundless examples of imitations and artificial scenarios. Eco defines hyperreality as an alternate “reality” that seems superior to the realism found in everyday life: consequently, actuality can seem second-rate. For example, when Eco rides a boat down an artificial river in Disneyland, he encounters mechanical imitations of animals while, when on a voyage down the real Mississippi, the river fails to produce alligator sightings. Eco proposes that"...You risk feeling homesick for Disneyland, where the wild animals don't have to be coaxed. Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can” (Eco).
Eco’s most interesting insight occurs when he finds, hidden behind all the façade of glitz and general spectacle that is Disneyland, the same principles of capitalism, but with a new upgrade: "The Main Street facades are presented to us as toy houses and invite us to enter them, but their interior is always a disguised supermarket, where you buy obsessively, believing that you are still playing” (Eco). Eco thus likens the Disney franchise as "An allegory of the consumer society, a place of absolute iconism…also as place of total passivity. Its visitors must agree to behave like robots” (Eco).
However, what is most remarkable concerning Eco’s Travels to Hyperreality in that, since its publication in 1986, many of its observations, if not all, about the general state of “horror vacui,” or fear of emptiness, in America still exists, and continues to grow, in today’s society. Any observer can see exaggerated versions on Eco’s examples of hyperreality in America today. Many movie theaters, already a place the promotes illusion, now surround audiences with three dimensional or even, in some cases, four-dimensional cinema experience, creating a new environment that Eco definitely would have deemed an “Absolute fake.” The expansion of the culture of illusion is extremely exemplified in the Las Vegas strip, with its Egyptian pyramid hotel, many themed hotels and resorts, reproduction of the Empire State building, its own version of the Grand Canyon, and various other instances of “hyperreality.”
The theme of “hyperreality,” and the situation of “horror vacui” it entails naturally ties into Plato’s criticism of human ignorance of reality. Plato argues that knowledge is inherent to humans-in other words we are born with the truth of Forms already ingrained in our psyche. However, the majority of the human race chooses to remain oblivious to the ultimate reality. Eco’s statement that humans are driven to “fear emptiness” ties in with Plato’s criticism of the inability of humans to attain and comprehend actual reality. Eco’s pursuit of “hyperreality” also adds another dimension to Plato’s allegory of the cave and the divided line schema: after humans reach the rhetorical belief stage, they can pursue “absolute fake” reality instead of attempting to comprehend the Form of the Good.
When the former prisoner returns back to the cave, he makes it his moral duty to attempt to spread his newly obtained valid grasp on reality. However, when he tries to make the others aware of the truth, pointing out the ignorance of his still-chained comrades who remain trapped in the cave of their own pseudo perspective, they resist education, and instead condemn the freed prisoner. The other prisoners criticize their former companion for his supposed loss of ethics, as dictated by the fallacy of shadows on the wall, held to be the essence of truth by the remaining prisoners of the cave. Their resistance is mirrors a common human tendency-anything that lies outside the domain of conventional thought is usually actively resisted and rejected. The depth of Plato’s grasp on the nature of the human race allows him to construct the allegory of the cave and relate it to the divided line schema. Though humans usually tend to peruse what surrounds them in respect to experiences of physical tangibility, to limit oneself to conventional thoughts inhibits further enlightenment of previously unrecalled truths through instruction.

Works Cited
Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyper Reality: Essays. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Print.
Plato, Republic (R. Hackforth, Trans.). In: The Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961). Edith
Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Eds.). Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Foundation.
"Umberto Eco and His Travels in Hyperreality." Umberto Eco and His Travels in Hyperreality. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://www.transparencynow.com/eco.htm>.