Topics Philosophers

Question In the divided line and the allegory of the cave, Plato talks about 'images', 'objects' and their relationship. I understood this purely as an allegory to explain how people can reach the the ultimate knowledge of the good, not as an explanation of how people perceive things. Still some dispute on the question if Plato would have thought knowledge about sensible things (a rock, a chair, light, sound etc.) is possible or we can only have opinions about them. But was Plato talking about sensible things, or is it merely an allegory for 'knowledge about the good', or 'the form of the good', as he names it himself, which could be the source of sensible objects, but never an object itself. Can we project his ideas on such things?

Accepted:
May 12, 2008

Comments

Given how dense and how brief these passages are, it will not surprise you to find out that scholars debate virtually every aspect of them, so bear in mind that whatever I say is probably contradicted somewhere by someone else!

But I think the answer to your question is that Plato is talking about both visible things, and also such things as the Form of the Good, as the part of the parable of the cave that takes place within the cave is supposed to represent the world of the sensibles. Plato intends to compare the two worlds, via the parable, to show not only how much more intelligible and reliable the things "outside the cave" of sensibles are, but also (somehow--scholars really debate this point) why and how it is that spending time outside the cave makes the ex-prisoner a better judge of things when he or she goes back inside the cave (though it takes some time for the returners to adjust again to the gloom). These "returners" will eventually be the philosopher-rulers of the state Plato explicates in the work. These last two points are critical, because whether or not it is correct to say that Plato thought there could be knowledge of sensibles, he certainly did think that knowledge of non-sensible intelligibles made one a vastly better judge of sensible things, too--otherwise, there would be no advantage to those who return to the cave from the outside!