The Allegory of the Cave

2:45 AM after a hard day with Helena Iara.  She had fussed all day long, and then at about 9, began to scream as loudly as she ever had, complaining of gas in her stomach.  After a couple of hours of comforting, she got to sleep and had slept well until 2AM, when she woke to eat.  And after the midnight snack, the worst vomiting episode yet.

After we got her cleaned up, Helena was calm and even happy: vomiting often seems to relieve the pressure in her tummy.  And as Rita went to the bathroom to clean herself up, Helena started to admire the shadows cast by me, the bed, and the mosquito net playing on the wall.  She smiled, fascinated.

So, of course, I had to tell her about Plato's allegory of the cave.

Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,--what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,--will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed--whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge 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.

I didn't tell the story in Plato's words.  That would bore the little girl stiff.  But the basic elements were all there.

Now, just about everyone in the history of philosophy interprets this story as a metaphor for the search for knowledge, for coming to value what is true (the sun) and not simply what appears.  But I wonder if there might not be a better way to think about it, as a metaphor for learning and education (after all, one of the prime themes of the Republic).  Babies love shadows and shadow play; it is one of the first things that surprises them and helps them learn how light and matter and physics work.  We'll see what it takes for her to understand that there is a light somewhere that causes the shadow...

And as for Plato's silly sun-mysticism, I'll deal with that another night when she can't sleep.