[id: an illustration of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In the surface world is a rich pile of various fruit. Behind the wall, robed individuals carry cutouts of those fruits in front of a fire. Against the far wall of the cave, where the shadows would be cast, is the LaCroix logo]
InThe Republic—after introducing ‘the analogy of the sun’, in which the idea of goodness ‘illuminates’ truth, and ‘the analogy of the divided line’—Plato presents ‘the Allegory of the Cave’ (depicted above).
Prisoners in an underground cave are chained by the neck and legs, their eyes fixed towards a wall onto which shadows are cast. Trusting their senses, these two-dimensional figures mark the prisoners’ reality. But this imaginary world does not represent the intelligible reality above it: the ‘world of ideas’.
Like the prisoners, we can only hope to understand reality by ascending out of the cave. Plato’s analogies are powerful. But is each story, the source, really consistent with its accompanying theory, the target of the analogy?
so, i live on the fourth floor of an apartment building that faces a fairly busy street; it’s on a hill so car noises are pretty regular over the course of the day. because i’m high above the street, you obviously can’t seethe cars unless you look out the window, right? but sometimes the sun reflects off the car roofs or whatever, and so there’ll be a light on my ceiling as a car passes by.
so my cat? whenever he hears a loud engine, day or night, he looks at my ceiling. even if there is no refraction going on. to him, those are the sounds of light on the ceiling. sometimes the light appears and there is a loud noise. it’s 8pm and a truck just passed and he watched the ceiling as the car moved past my windows – no reflection this time of night, but trucks are ceiling creatures and i just think that’s such a like – it’s a good correlation, buddy!! you figured it out!! you’re wrong but you’re so smart!!
this is NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING FROM THIS POST but anyway here’s my cat stalking trucks (on the ceiling)
25 hours later and rip my phone battery and i’m thinking i should’ve named my cat plato….or y’know……….at all
response to some common tags on this post:
yes he is a handsome and fluffy boy
yes he sits super weird all the time he’s a proper young gentleman
yes that chair has been through it; no one else touches it anymore it’s been surrendered to his control
no i did not ever name him he’s a shadowy figure of mystery (we call him fluffbutt)
no i had not really heard of plato’s cave before but boy do i know it now
