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Analysis of Plato’s Cave

Analysis of Plato’s Cave. Aim: To discuss and analyse Plato’s cave analogy. Key Terminology. P’s cave analogy shows his Ontology : A theory about the structure of reality Epistemology : A theory about knowledge and what can be known

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Analysis of Plato’s Cave

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  1. Analysis of Plato’s Cave Aim: To discuss and analyse Plato’s cave analogy.

  2. Key Terminology • P’s cave analogy shows his Ontology: A theory about the structure of reality Epistemology: A theory about knowledge and what can be known Dualism: A theory that the world consists of two realities (2 worlds in 1).

  3. Background to the Cave • Immediately preceding the analogy of the Cave are: 1) The simile of the Sun 2) The analogy of the divided line These are meant to be read as a reference to the cave analogy.

  4. Simile of the sun • The simile is used to express Plato’s ideas about the Form of the Good. • Socrates argues that the eye needs a light source in order to see physical objects (i.e. the sun), analogously there needs to be a similar object in the intelligible world (i.e. the Form of the Good).

  5. The ideas of ‘illumination’ and ‘generation’ are key to the simile. P argues that just as the sun illuminates and generates the physical world, so does the Form of the Good with the intelligible world. What do you think a Judeo-Christian theologian would make of this simile?

  6. Form of the God? • The Form of the Good is arguably P’s concept of God, however it is certainly not a personal God as suggested in the J-C tradition. “When [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent it apprehends and knows them and appears to possess reason, but when it inclines to that region which is mingled with darkness, the world of becoming and passing away, it opines only and its edge is blunted, and it shifts its opinions hither and thither, and again seems as if it lacked reason.”

  7. The analogy of the divided line • Socrates uses the analogy as a literary device as a way of demonstrating his philosophical ideas about the different kinds of ‘objects’ (used in philosophical sense) and the corresponding knowledge of them. • He says to divide the line into two unequal parts AC and CE. AC represent the visible world, and CE the intelligible world. • He then creates another two unequal division with points B and D to result in four sections corresponding to four kinds of objects, and so four kinds of knowledge. → Which sections correspond to the world inside the cave, and which to the world outside of the cave?

  8. Questions: • What is significant about the unequal lines? • What does the analogy suggest about P’s attitude towards science and the physical world?

  9. Cave/ Matrix • I will show you an excerpt from the Matrix. • On the sheet write down the corresponding features of the film and the cave. • Then in the next box write down any ideas about the relevance of the analogy to today.

  10. Strengths and weaknesses of the analogy • Consider the strengths and weaknesses of the analogy. • I will write up 2 lists on the whiteboard. Copy these down as we go through them.

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