>> Welcome back to Intro to Philosophy
1010, the summer 2019 session.
So we are now entering the part of the
book about metaphysics, the study of being.
And we're starting with Plato's
cave allegory in the Republic.
So what is reality?
What is being?
And for Plato it's what exists,
ultimately is the absolute idea of the good
from which emanates all of the other
absolute ideas or eternal forms of knowledge.
And that all the things we
perceive in the material world are
like shadows of these absolute eternal forms.
That's the cave allegory.
So it begins at the end of Book 6 of the
Republic with the idea of the divided line.
So Plato depicts his mentor Socrates
talking to a young man named Glaucon.
And they're trying to discover what is justice?
So they say, well, Socrates suggests let's
make an idea of the just society and look
for justice there on the assumption that the
pattern of the city, which is large and easy
to observe, mirrors the pattern
of the individual's psyche,
the psychological pattern of each human being.
And if you can find justice in a bigger city,
then you can find it in the individual soul.
So what is justice?
That's the ultimate question
that they're trying to answer.
And this is part of that
quest, the cave allegory.
And justice, it turns out, it's just one of
the forms or absolute ideas that emanates
from the ultimate form, which
is the idea of the good.
So, just to give you an idea of
what the idea of the good means,
St. Agustin famously combined Plato's
metaphysics with Christian theology
and equated God with the idea of the good.
And all the other forms that emanate from the
idea of the good are the ideas in God's mind.
So when God thought, I'm going to create
the universe, and God made a tree,
he was reflecting upon the idea
of tree in his eternal mind.
So that kind of gives you an idea
of what the idea of the good is.
So here's a little diagram and this
is Alan Bloom's famous translation
of the Republic of Plato.
And in his endnotes, he is
talking about the divided line.
So I'm just going to put this up
to the screen and see if you know,
you can get a little graph there.
So you see there's two sections with
a big dividing line in the middle,
and each of the two main sections
is further divided in half.
So here is how he describes that.
He says, "Imagine a line that's
been cut into two unequal parts."
This is page 433 on the left hand column.
"And divide each of them
again in the same proportion.
Suppose the two main divisions to answer one to
the visible and the other to the intelligible,
then compare the subdivisions in respective
their clearances amounts of clearness."
So here's the divisions at the --
so there's the intellectual world
of eternal forms of knowledge.
And then there's the material
world that you can perceive
with your sense organs that's ever changing.
And no knowledge of it can be had, because it's
never the same from one moment to the next.
So take a line, cut it in
half, or actually divide it
with the top part being larger
than the bottom part.
And now take each of those segments and
divide it again by the same proportion.
So the largest section is the topmost
part of the eternal intelligible world.
And the bottom part of the eternal
intelligible world is a little smaller.
And it consists of mathematical
forms, as we'll see.
And then below that is the intelligible world.
The top most part is the
physical things that you can see,
the three dimensional objects
existing in during through time.
And then the lowest part of that divided
line is the shadows and reflections
of the physical three dimensional objects.
So there are two dimensional
shadows, two dimensional mirror images
that you might see in water or polished metal.
This is how he describes it.
So those are the four levels of
being with the ultimate division
between the intellectual eternal world and
the material, sensible, ever changing world.
"Okay," he says, "Clock on, all right, I
kind of get what you're trying to say."
And he says -- and then so the clarity
of knowledge of each of these sections,
increases as you go up the ladder.
So at the bottom are shadows and
reflections of three dimensional things.
So that's the lowest form of knowledge.
It's imagination is how he describes it.
And then one above that is the
things of which cast the shadows
and the reflections, three dimensional objects.
So you can have an opinion about those things.
But again, they're ever changing.
So you can't have certain knowledge about
physical, tangible, material objects.
But those three dimensional physical forms
are themselves like shadows or reflections
of the next level up, which is the
lowest level of the intellectual world,
which are the mathematical forms
that describe the physical forms.
So if you have the mathematical,
you know, the geometrical formulas
that describe a physical tree, for example,
that those geometrical forms are eternal.
They don't change.
And they're the same everywhere for everyone.
And what he's saying is that the
physical trees are a reflection
of the mathematical forms
that would describe a tree.
And then above that level of these
mathematical forms like the, you know,
if you were to use the laws
of physics to describe some --
the way the stars move or any
physical occurrences in the
in the tangible world that's the bottom level.
Above that are the abstract
forms like justice and beauty
that don't have parallels in physical objects.
So you can say, "Oh, yeah,
well, Pythagoras' theorem,
a squared plus b squared equals c
squared about a right angle triangle.
This edge squared plus this edge squared
will tell you how long this edge is squared.
That's an eternal geometrical form of knowledge.
And it applies to all of the right angled
triangles that approximate a perfect triangle
that you might see in the material world.
So, but there is no triangle or physical
image that you could imagine in your mind
that would resemble justice, or even beauty.
You can have examples of justice and beauty.
But what is the essence of justice itself?
It doesn't seem like you can
conjure an image of what that is.
So that is that top level of the
intellectual world of absolute forms.
And then at the very top of that
level is the idea of the good,
which has its own unique category.
It's the source of being.
It's beyond being.
It's the essence of everything.
And we have to open up the eye of
the mind in order to perceive it.
And once we do, then we'll understand all of the
other absolute forms like justice and courage
and beauty and the forms, the mathematical forms
that describe all the physical
things that we see.
All right, so that's the divided line.
And to explain the divided line in an
allegory he uses the cave allegory.
So he says that -- if you look on
page 434 on the left hand column,
the second to last paragraph is
the end of the divided line lesson
and then he goes into the actual cave allegory.
So I'll read the end of that
divided line explanation.
Says, "You have quite conceives
my meaning, I said.
And now corresponding to these four divisions,
let there be four faculties in the soul,
reason answering to the highest."
So reason helps you perceive the idea of the
good, and also the ideas of justice and beauty
and those kinds of abstract things.
So reason answers to the highest.
Understanding to the second.
So when you have knowledge of the mathematical
forms that describe the physical world,
then you have what he's calling
here translated as understanding.
Now about just knowledge of the physical things
without knowing the mathematical forms
underlying them, he calls that faith
or conviction to the third and
perception of shadows to the last.
When you see shadows and mirror images,
that's the lowest form of knowledge.
So, and he says, "And let
there be a scale of them.
Let us suppose that the several
faculties have clearness
in the same degree that their
objects have truth."
So, reason is the clearest and it
perceives forms like justice and beauty,
which are themselves the clearest
things that you can perceive.
And each level of being that after that gets
dimmer and murkier until you're at the level
of shadows and reflections
in the material world.
Okay, so now, here's how he introduces it.
I'll just read a little bit and
then I'll summarize without reading
so that it doesn't become too monotonous.
And he says, "And now I said, let me show
in a figure how far our nature
is enlightened or unenlightened.
Behold human being 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 next chain
so that they can't move, and can only see
before them being prevented by the chains
from turning around their heads."
All right, so prisoners taken
at birth from above ground,
they're taken down into a subterranean
cave and chained up head to foot and forced
to look at the back wall of a cave.
And he goes on to say, "Now imagine
behind them, and above is a blazing fire,
which is above the entrance to the key.
And between that fire that's behind them, and
in themselves, is a raised platform with a wall,
a short wall that allows guards to carry
puppets back and forth on the platform,
so that their puppets shadows are cast onto the
wall, but the shadows of the guards are not."
So then what would those
prisoners experience that as?
Wouldn't they think the shadows are
reality since that's all they've ever seen?
They've never even seen their own bodies;
they only see their own shadows on the wall.
They see their neighbor's shadows on the wall.
And they hear echoes off the wall
from when the guards are talking,
when they're walking these puppets
and statues and other silhouettes
of three dimensional objects
from outside the cave.
So they might have a silhouette of a puppet
or I mean a bunny or a tree or, you know,
any physical thing that you might
perceive outside the cave has this icon,
this material cutout form kind of to create
this shadow image of it on the back wall.
And this is all remembered
correlating to the divided line.
So shadows is the lowest form of knowledge.
These prisoners it's all they see is shadows.
Now Socrates says, "Imagine someone comes
down into the cave and frees a prisoner
from the chains and turns his
head around and says, "Look,
this is the source of what you've been seeing.
These are shadows.
They're cast from these puppets.
And it's the fire in the back
that's casting the shadows."
Well, wouldn't he suffer from sharp pains?
And when he sees that fire his whole -- his
eyes have been focused on the shadows, so,
staring at a blazing fire would hurt his eyes.
He wouldn't really be able to see anything.
He'd be blinded by the light.
He would prefer to go back and look
at the shadows to comfort himself.
But if he was forced up the
rough and steep ascent.
On the left hand column of page 435 says, "And
suppose once more that he's reluctantly dragged
up a steep and rugged ascent and held fast until
he's forced into the presence of the sun itself.
Isn't he likely to be pained and irritated?
When he approaches the light,
his eyes will be dazzled.
And you won't be able to see anything at
all of what are now called realities."
All right.
So then he explains, at first, he'll
be able to see shadows and reflections
of things in puddles at nighttime.
He'll be able to see the reflections of the
stars and the moon, in puddles on the ground.
And he can see shadows of things in the daytime.
Then eventually he'll be
able to look up at nighttime
at the planets and the stars and the moon.
And then ultimately, he'll be able to look
at the sun itself in the middle of the day,
probably not stare at it,
but take a glance and see it.
And then he'll realize -- I'll just read here,
"Last of all, he'll be able to see the sun
and not mere reflections of it in the water.
But he'll see it in its own
proper place and not in another.
And he'll contemplate it as it
is certainly," says Glaucon.
"He'll then procedure argue that this
is what gives the season and the years
and is the guardian of all
that's in the visible world
and in a certain way, the cause of all things.
He and his fellows have been
accustomed to behold."
And okay, won't he have pity on
the people down in the cave now?
Formally, he didn't want
to leave the cave at all.
Now he sees reality.
And he thinks, "Oh, those people down
in the cave, what a horrible life."
"Better to be the poor servant of a
poor master," says Homer, "Than to be --
" I think, "The king down in Hades,"
is the rest of the rest of the quote.
But I'll read here on the
right hand column of page 435.
And he says, "And if they were in the habit
of conferring honors among themselves on those
who are quickest to observe the passing shadows
and to remark, which of them went before
and which followed after and which were
together and who were therefore best able
to draw conclusions as to the future.
Do you think that he would care
for such honors and glories?
No, he wouldn't."
So down in the cave, the game the prisoners
play is which shadows will come in which order.
And those who are quick witted,
will be able to discover, "Oh yeah,
this shadow the rabbit always comes
before the shadow of the tree.
And furthermore, it makes a coughing sound,
because the guard who walks the rabbit
puppet coughs occasionally or has a limp."
And so they hear all that and they think
it's coming from the shadows themselves,
and they pride themselves on
understanding the shadow world.
So someone who's come out of the shadow
world, and gone through the painful process
of seeing the light of the
sun now is forced to come back
down to return the favor of
freeing another prisoner.
But the problem is now as he was blinded
by the light, so now he's blinded
by the darkness going back into the cave.
On page 435, the right hand column, and
he says, "And if there were a contest,
and he had to compete in measuring the
shadows with the prisoners who had never moved
out of the den, while his sight was still
weak, and before his eyes have become steady,
and the time which would be
needed to acquire this new habit
of sight might be very considerable,
wouldn't he be ridiculous?
Men would say of him that up he went
and down he came without his eyes.
And that it was better not
even to think of ascending.
If anyone tried to lose another and lead him up
to the light, let them only catch the offender
and they would put him to death."
Of course, they can't catch the offender
because their hands and legs are chained.
But they would put them to death because they
would think, "Oh, this person's lost his eyes.
He can't see.
He's blind.
And he's crazy.
He's talking about forms that exist outside
of a cave, and we all live in a cave.
And these are I don't know
what he's talking about.
But I know he can't see what reality is.
He can't see rabbit shadow.
He can't they don't know
even that it's a shadow.
He can't see rabbit he can't see tree.
He doesn't know the order that they're going
to come and he doesn't seem to care at all.
He has no respect for what we hold in such great
esteem, which is knowledge of these things."
And they would want to kill him.
So this is going to be related
to Exam 3, Part B, Question 1.
In Plato's cave allegory, why did the
prisoners chained in the cave wants
to kill the prisoner who
was released but returned?
What does that part of the allegory mean?
All right, so they want to kill him because
they think he's blind and he lost his eyes
and he wants to make them as blind as he is.
What does that part of the allegory mean?
Well, then you have to understand
what the allegory is trying to say.
And what the allegory is saying is,
Socrates will go on to explain that the fire
in the cave is the visible
sun on our material world.
And the shadows on the wall of
the cave are the physical objects
that we see that emanate from the sun.
So as the fire in the cave
allegory is in relation to the sun,
so too is the sun in relation to the idea of the
good, the spiritual sun from which emanates all
of the absolute forms the
absolute idea of rabbit of tree,
and all of the other higher forms
like justice and beauty and courage.
So that's the allegory.
We hear in the three dimensional material
world, which is illuminated by the sun.
We are as if in a cave shackled, head to foot.
And we need to learn how to turn the eye of
our soul around from the outer perception
to the inner perception of the absolute
forms, which are imprinted on every soul.
And when we have opened up the eye of our
soul, which seems to be synonymous with reason,
when we have used reason to
detect the absolute forms
from which all the physical forms
emanate, then we'll have self-knowledge.
We can be just at last.
So I'll just read what -- so
how Socrates described it.
So at the very bottom of
page 435 on over to page 436.
He says, "This entire allegory
that I said, you may now append,
dear Glaucon, to the previous argument.
The prison houses the world of sight.
The light of the fire is the sun
and you won't miss apprehend 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.
When seen it's also inferred to be the universal
author of all things beautiful and right,
parents of light and of the Lord of Light
in this visible world," that's the sun,
the Lord of Light, "And the immediate source
of reason and truth in the intellectual.
This is the power upon which he would
act rationally, either in public
or private life must have his eye fixed."
All right, so there's the cave allegory.
Now going back to these discussion questions.
So what does the part of the
allegory mean about the prisons?
They want to kill the prisoner who
went out of the cave and returned.
It means someone who has realized
that this material world has a shadow
of eternal spiritual world, and then
tries to explain that to the people
who have never had that realization.
They will seem crazy to those people
and they might try to kill them.
As for example, they tried to kill Socrates
and actually did put Socrates to death.
Although I think by the time they put
Socrates to death, he was no longer blinded
by the darkness of the political world.
I think he was pretty well
aware of what was going on.
But I think also when we go to exam question
1 for Part A, so this is all in preparation
for Exam 3, there's a part in Plato's dialogue,
the Phaedrus that will help explain
why the people want to kill the person
who has been out of the cave and returns.
So Part A Question 1 for Exam 3.
Combine Plato's cave allegory in the
Republic with Plato's Phaedo and Phaedrus.
from Chapter 9 of our book to
explain his theory of absolute ideas.
Be sure to cite at least one passage from each.
So Plato's theory of the absolute ideas.
This is an introduction to philosophy
class, so I'm trying to introduce you
to that most basic idea of philosophy.
And when you compare and contrast
Plato's different dialogues,
where he's depicting Socrates saying different
things about this theory of absolute ideas,
when you start to put them together, you get
a better picture of the way the thing works.
And also, as I'm going through
this now on -- so let's see here.
I've written down the page number.
For the Phaedo, that pertinent
passages will be on pages 252 and 253.
And for the Phaedrus, page 257.
So let me mark the Republic
here, and go to page 252 and 257.
So, especially in the Phaedrus, and I
put videos out about these dialogues
for the first part of our class for Exam 1.
And so you can go back and look at those videos
to get maybe a more detailed
breakdown of these two dialogues.
Because I'm just focusing on the theory of
ideas, which what most of the dialogue is about.
But the ideas in the Phaedrus
specifically are said to be
at the outermost sphere of the universe.
And we saw that the Upanishads
say the same things about Brahman
and absolute knowledge being in the outermost
sphere of the universe called Akasa or Ether.
And I bring it up because as strange as it
sounds to say that all of the absolute ideas are
out at this outermost sphere of the
universe, the history of physics, since Plato,
and especially in the 20th century has
resulted in a theory that's very similar
to that holographic string theory,
which I've talked about before.
And according to that theory, all of the bits of
information that describe the entire progression
of the material cosmos from beginning to
end, coexist and are interwoven at each point
of the outermost sphere of the universe.
And then that information radiates
in with the echo of the big bang
on these fundamental elastic
threads, these one dimensional threads
to create the holographic movie that we
see unfolding through space and time.
So that is very similar to
Plato's cave allegory.
Especially when you combine
it with the Phaedrus,
where he says that the absolute
ideas are located out at
that outermost edge of the universe.
And so that's why I think it gives people have
more of a reason to take Plato seriously when it
so closely resembles the cutting edge of modern
cosmology that was born from Plato's dialogues.
And especially the Republic, where he sets out
a mathematical curriculum to teach people how
to perceive this idea of the good,
how to open up the eye of the soul.
First you study non-dimensional
numbers, just the number line.
Then you study two dimensional
geometry of a plane surface.
Then three dimensional geometry.
And then three dimensional objects
moving, which is the study of time.
The planets are three dimensional
objects and they move.
That's how measure time.
And musical instruments are physical
objects that move in this regular pattern.
That's how you measure time.
So it's definitely related to studying physics
in the dimensions of nature how Socrates say.
That's how you open the eyes of
the soul to this idea of the good.
So at the end of that historical progress from
the Republic up to holographic string theory,
it brought us full circle, more
or less to Plato's cosmology,
as expressed in the cave
allegory and other dialogues.
So I just want to read here.
Here's my book that I put out based on
my dissertation, Psyche and Singularity.
And I compare [inaudible] philosophy or
psychology to holographic string theory
as expressed by Leonard Susskind.
But here's a quote from a famous
string theorist Brian Greene.
So you might have seen him on TV.
He's been on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
a few times and he puts out a lot PBS specials
and other kinds of cosmology documentaries
which I find to be very valuable.
And he points out this parallel
with the holographic string theory
in Plato's cave allegory in two of his books.
And one of one of them is
the Fabric of the Cosmos.
And the other one is the Hidden Reality.
So he says, "Whereas Plato envisions common
perceptions as revealing a mere shadow
of reality, the holographic principle concurs
but turns the metaphor on its head, the shadows.
The things that are flattened out, and hence
live on a lower dimensional surface or real.
Well, what seems to be the more richly
structured higher dimensional entities us the
world around us or even us in
projections of the shadows."
Well, it is a fantastically strange idea.
And one is role in the final understanding
of space time is far from clear,
to hoofed in Susskind's so called
holographic principles well motivated.
So I'll just read this other excerpt from his
book, The Hidden Reality where he says again,
"Two millennia later, it seems that
Plato's cave may be more than a metaphor
to turn his suggestion on its head
reality not its mere shadow may take place
on a distinct boundary surface.
While everything we witness in the three
common spatial dimensions is a projection
of that faraway unfolding
reality that is maybe akin
to a hologram or really a holographic movie."
So he's saying in the cave allegory,
the shadows on the back wall
of the cave that's two dimensional that's flat.
And they are projections from three
dimensional solid objects behind them,
which are the puppets carried by the guards.
So what Brian Greene is saying is that
holographic string theory says all
of the information of the universe is eternally
imprinted on this two dimensional sphere
of flat, concave surface surrounding the cosmos.
And then it radiates in from there.
And that the higher dimensional
three dimensional objects are shadows
of that two dimensional sphere.
So he's saying it agrees
with Plato's cave allegory
that the three dimensional world
we perceive is an illusion.
But it's not being projected from higher
dimensional forms as you would expect according
to the cave allegory, which rises
from two dimensional shadows
to three dimensional objects.
The next level you would assume would be
some higher dimensional, four dimensional,
the study of time is -- So at any
rate, he's saying it's reversing that.
Reality is two dimensional.
Well, on in one respect yet,
according to that theory,
the cosmic horizon is this
two dimensional flat surface.
It's curved, but it's itself is perfectly flat.
And so that's reality.
But if you read Plato's dialogues, and if
you read near death experiences like the one
that the psychologist Carl Jung talks
about, or the one Plato depicts at the end
of the Republic, as Socrates talks about the
Myth of Er, where a soldier named Er woke
up before his funeral pyre was lit.
And he recalled his journey to the
outermost horizon of the cosmos.
They say that that outermost sphere of the
universe isn't a flat two dimensional screen,
it is this most beautiful and blissful realm,
which has more clarity and reality and depth
of meaning than anything you can
experience in the material world.
But the main point is, it just
seems more than a coincidence
that this newest cosmology called holographic
string theory, which unites quantum mechanics
and general relativity, this great feat, the
synthesis that has been a trial and an obstacle
for the history of physics ever since the
discovery of quantum mechanics in 1927.
That this union of those opposing theories
should reproduce something so similar
to what Plato describes I think, should give
us a good reason to take Plato more seriously
and really try to understand
what his cave allegory means.
And so we're comparing it now,
a little bit to the Phaedrus.
So let me just read here on page 257,
the left hand column halfway down.
And he says, "Of the nature of the
soul, the true form is ever a theme
of large and more than mortal discourse.
Let me speak briefly and in a figure
and let the figure be composite,
a pair of winged horses into chariots here."
All right, so we've gone over this,
the chariot analogy, the Phaedrus.
He goes on to say -- All
right, so the chariot analogy.
The whole ensemble is the self.
It's a composite image in the Phaedo,
which we'll go over in a moment.
He says the soul has to be non-composite,
a simple thing that doesn't have parts.
Because if it has parts it can be
disassembled, but the soul is eternal.
So this metaphor of a composite image
can make things a little bit complicated,
but at any rate, the driver is the intellect.
And then there's two horses pulling
the chariots and they have wings.
And one of them is this kind of this righteous
horse that tries to obey the chariots here.
But the other one is disobedient and is
always trying to go after sense pleasures.
And so if the charioteer can't get the
horses to obey, then it can't drive the soul
to the outermost sphere of the
universe in between incarnation.
So after death, your soul travels and if
you've trained yourself in sense control
and how to use reason, then you can fly your
chariot all the way to the outermost sphere
of the universe and perceive the absolute
ideas like justice and courage and beauty.
So he says, continuing here, "I'll endeavor
to explain to you how the mortal differs
from the emotional creature, the
soul in her totality has the care
of inanimate being everywhere and traverses
the whole heaven, appearing in diverse forms.
So the soul in her totality.
This implies that each of our little souls
is part of the total soul of the cosmos
which traverses the whole heaven and
has care of inanimate being everywhere."
So inanimate being the physical three
dimensional forms that we've received
and the shadows that they
cast and their reflections.
They come from the soul and her totality
which traverses the whole heaven.
"So when perfect and fully winged, she
soars upward in orders the whole world,
the imperfect soul losing her
wings and drooping in her flight
at last settles on the solid ground."
So when your soul is perfected through
philosophy and sense control, then you soar up
or then you become part of the
ordering principle of the cosmos.
But if you can't train yourself properly,
then you fall back down through the cycle
of reincarnation and take
on another material body.
All right, so the demigods, the
immortals, they have no problem going out
and perceiving these eternal
forums, but for us, it's difficult.
Now if you're comparing the cave
allegory in the Republic to this,
just notice that the struggling to get the
horses of the chariot of your soul to go
up this rough journey to the outermost
sphere that parallels the pain
of the prisoner being dragged up the
rough and steep ascent out of the cave.
So there's a good parallel there.
All right, so on the right hand column of
page 257, he says, "This is the hour of agony
and extremist conflict for the soul.
For the immortals when they are at
the end of their course go forth
and stand upon the outside of heaven.
The revolution of the sphere carries them
around and they behold the things beyond.
But of the heaven which is above the
heavens what earthly poet ever did
or ever will sing worldly?
I'll describe it, for I must dare to
speak the truth when truth is my theme.
There abides the very being with
which true knowledge is concerned."
All right, so there it is.
The idea of the good is the
very being that's beyond being.
It's the source of being.
And all the forms, the eternal
absolute ideas are there too.
"So there abides the very being with which true
knowledge is concerned, the colorless, formless,
intangible essence visible only
to mind the pilot of the soul.
So the divine intelligence being
nurtured upon mind and pure knowledge.
And the intelligence of every soul capable
of receiving the food proper to it,
rejoices at beholding reality and once
more gazing upon truth, she is replenished
and made glad until the revolution of the
worlds bring us around again to the same place.
In the revolution she beholds justice
and temperance and knowledge absolute,
not in the form of generation or of
relation which men call existence
but knowledge absolute in existence absolute.
The holding the other true existences
in like manner and feasting upon them,
she passes down into the interior
of the heavens and returns home."
All right, so that is true being.
That's where you perceive these absolute
forms in the outermost sphere of the cosmos.
On the right hand column of page 258 near the
bottom it says, "And at the end of the first --
" All right, so he's talking about the
details of reincarnation, how many thousands
of years you have to spend at
different parts of the cosmos.
Then he says, "But the soul which has never
seen the truth will not pass into the human form
for a man must have intelligence of universals
and be able to proceed from the many particulars
of sense to one conception of reason.
This is the recollection of those things
which are so once saw while following God.
And this is just for is always according to
the measure -- " All right, wait a minute.
All right.
Let me read that again.
"This is the recollection of those things
which our soul [inaudible] when following God
when regardless of what we now called being,
she raised her head up towards the true being.
And therefore, the mind of the
philosophy alone has wings.
This is just for is always according
to the measure of his abilities,
clinging and recollection to
those things in which God abides.
In beholding them he is what he is.
And he who employs aright these
memories is ever being initiated
into perfect mysteries, and
alone becomes truly perfect.
But as he forgets earthly interests,
and is wrapped in the divine,
the vulgar deem him mad and rebuke him.
They do not see that he is inspired."
All right, so you see another
parallel with the cave allegory there.
Question number 1 for Part B of Exam 3 is why
do the prisoners want to kill the prisoner
who returns from outside of the cave?
Because they think he's blind.
He can't see in the dark anymore.
The shadows he can't see the order in
which they emerge in the sounds they make.
He doesn't care about anymore.
And so people think he's trying to
make us as crazy and blind as he is.
And similarly, Socrates is saying here
in the Phaedrus, that someone who's been
to the outermost sphere of the cosmos and
perceive these beautiful forms of being,
that as he forgets earthly interests
and is wrapped in the divine,
the vulgar deem him mad and rebuke him.
They do not see that he is inspired.
So that's what that part of the allegory means.
When you've seen the light, this form
of all forms, the idea of all ideas,
the idea of the good it puts you into a raft,
blissful state that makes you unconcerned
with material things so that other
people might think you're just insane.
And they might want to put you to death.
We've seen that throughout history.
People come and say, "Oh, this
world is like a shadow or a prison
and there's another world there's
the eternal heavenly kingdom.
Jesus Christ said that.
They killed him as a famous example
of Socrates as another famous example
and it happens throughout history.
And that is what Plato wrote about.
So now we're going to compare the
cave allegory to parts of the Phaedo.
So the Phaedo is when Socrates
is in jail waiting his execution.
They're going to bring him Hemlock at the
end of the dialogue, because he was convicted
of believing in the gods of his own
invention instead of the gods of the state
and corrupting the youth by getting them
to believe in the things he believes.
His gods are these absolute ideas.
And he was killed, according to the Phaedo and
apology for preaching that kind of a philosophy.
So that's just also related.
Clearly, when Plato wrote about people
will think someone who's wrapped
in divine contemplation is mad and
they'll rebuke him or even kill him
in the cave allegory, he's thinking of Socrates
who was executed for talking about such things.
So on page 252, Socrates is explaining,
"Well, why am I not afraid to die
to his friend Simmius and -- " who's the other?
I can't believe I forgot the other
guy's name, but it'll come to me.
So he's there saying, "Socrates,
why aren't you afraid to die?"
And he's saying, "Because the philosopher
his whole life is spent preparing for death,
to get the soul as free from
the body as possible.
Because only when we're free from the sense
perceptions and the desires of our bodily sense,
organs, can we perceive the absolute forms."
So on the right hand column of
page 252, he says, "And in this,
the philosopher dishonors the body.
His soul runs away from the body and
desires to be alone and by yourself.
That's true.
Well, but there's another thing Simmius
-- " Oh, Cebes is the other guy.
So Simmius and Cebes is who he's talking to.
"But there's another thing, Simmius, is
there or is there not an absolute justice?
Assuredly there is.
And an absolutely beauty and absolute good?
Of course.
But did you ever be hold
any of them with your eyes?
Certainly not.
Or did you ever reach them
with any other bodily sense?
And I speak not of these alone but of
absolute greatness and health and strength
and of the essence our true
nature of everything.
Have you ever perceived the reality
of them through your bodily organs?
Or rather, isn't the nearest approach to the
knowledge of their several natures made by one
who so orders his intellectual vision
as to have the most exact conception
of the essence of that which he considers?
Certainly."
So they're looking for the essence of things.
You don't want to see a physical tree.
You want to perceive the absolute
idea of tree or greatness, health,
strength and courage and
all these other virtues.
You don't want to contemplate all of
the many individual historical examples
of those things passing through time.
You want to see the timeless, eternal,
simple, perfect essence of each of those.
And you can't do that while you're in a body.
So says Socrates in the Phaedo.
"And he attains to knowledge of them
in their highest purity who goes
to each of them with the mind alone.
He doesn't allow when in the act of thought,
the intrusion or introduction of sight
or any other sense in the company of reason.
But with the very light of
the mind, in her clearness,
he penetrates into the very
light of truth in each."
All right, so the light of the
mind in the light of truth.
That in the cave allegory,
we see the idea of the good.
It's the source of light in the material
world, because it's the source of the sun.
And it's the source of intellectual
light, which is knowledge,
consciousness itself is the very light of truth.
And it enables us to see the absolute
ideas which are imprinted on every soul.
So, I'll read a little bit more on page 253.
On the left hand column, he
says in about halfway down.
"All experience shows that
if we want pure knowledge
of anything, we must get rid of the body.
The soul in herself must be
old all things in themselves.
Then I suppose we'll attain what we
desire and what we say we love, wisdom,
not while we live but after death."
A little bit later down, he says that, "And
we make the nearest approach to knowledge
when we have the least possible concern for
or interest in the body and aren't saturated
with the bodily nature, but
remain pure until the hour
when God Himself is pleased to release us.
And then the foolishness of
the body will be cleared away.
We'll be pure and converse
with other pure souls.
We ourselves will know the clear
light everywhere, the light of truth."
And then on page 254, he's talking about
here's evidence for the soul being eternal
because it's simple and unchanging,
just like the absolute ideas.
So we're comparing the ideas
in the cave allegory,
to the theory of abstract ideas in the Phaedo.
And on page 254, the left hand column he says,
"Now the compound or composite may be supposed
to be naturally capable of being
dissolved, just as it was compounded.
But what is uncompounded and that only
must indissoluble if anything is."
Okay so then he's going to say he's absent
forms are uncompounded there's simple truths.
He says, "Then now let's return
to the previous discussion.
Is that idea or essence which in
a dialectical process we define
as the essence of true existence?
Whether essence of equality, beauty or anything
else are these essences I say liable a time
to some degree of change?
Or are they each of them always what they
are having the same simple self-existence
and unchanging forms, and not
admitting a variation at all?"
All right, yeah, that's what they are.
They're unchanging, simple self exists in
forms that we can perceive through the process,
which he calls dialectical process.
So that's another part of the cave allegory.
The way they perceive the highest forms
that are above the mathematical forms is
through a process he calls dialectic.
And if you look on back on page 434,
at the top of the left hand column,
"And when I speak of the other division of the
intelligible," that's the highest division,
he says, "You'll understand me to
speak of that other sort of knowledge
that reason herself attains by the power
of dialectic, using the hypotheses not
as first principles, but only as hypotheses."
All right, so through dialectic we can
come to know what are the absolute forms
of these abstract concepts like justice,
equality, beauty, courage, things like that.
What is dialectic?
Well, it's just two people talking to each
other and trying to find logical flaws
with each other's definitions in
the hope of discovering the truth.
If there are eternal forms and printed on each
of our souls, then we just need to dig a memory
of those forms up through
this kind of a conversation.
"Here's what it is."
"No, it's not that there's a flaw with that."
"Oh, you're right.
But there's a flaw with you say."
"Oh, okay.
Yeah, you're right."
And you can zero in on the truth.
That's the power of dialectic.
It's what Socrates himself is
doing in all of these dialogues.
We're going to see Hegel
talk about dialectic also.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, for
someone says something that's a thesis.
And someone says, "Oh, the exact
opposite is true," antithesis.
And someone else says, "No, you're both
partially right, you should synthesize the two."
Okay, then that becomes a new
thesis and the process repeats.
So at any rate, the power of
dialectic in the cave allegory it
when he's discussing the divided line,
which the cave allegory is an allegory of,
he talks about this power of dialectic.
And we see that also in the Phaedo
on page 254 again, on the left.
"Is that idea or essence, which in
the dialectical process we define
as the essence of true existence."
All right, so are these essences liable
at times to some degree of change?
No, they don't change.
They're simple.
They're eternal.
And when you can perceive them
you will live forever in bliss.
And that is what the philosophers spend
their entire lives trying to achieve.
And if you can perceive these
forms while you're alive,
you're more likely to return as a human being.
All right, so let me go back and look at these.
So part A, of Exam 3, Question 1.
Combine Plato's cave allegory in the
Republic with Plato's Phaedo and Phaedrus,
from Chapter 9 of our book to
explain his theory of absolute ideas.
So we've gone over that.
There's plenty of material.
If you combine them all together, it seems
that according to Plato, these absolute ideas,
which are the source of all the physical things
we perceive, exist at the outermost sphere
of the universe, where your soul can go after
death if you've trained yourself during life,
to control your senses, and to use reason
to ever try to perceive these absolute forms
of knowledge that are imprinted on the soul.
And there's the parallels with people who have
the vision will then seem to be mad to others
who have never had that kind of a
vision and you need to use dialectic.
And it's difficult process like in the
cave allegory, pulling the prisoner
out of the cave up the rough and steep ascent.
Is similar to the Phaedrus where the chariot
of the soul with the horses struggles horribly
to get out and see these eternal
forms and most people can't.
And the wings of their horses get mangled
and it's a difficult struggle to see.
It's just not an easy process, but
ultimately, you want to see the idea
of the good the reflection
of which is the visible sun.
Okay, so that covers Question 1 for Part A. And
Question 2 for Part B is how is Plato's idea
of the good in the Republic
similar to the idea of Vishnu
in the Katha Upanishad from
Chapter 7 of our book?
So pages 213 and 214 talks about Vishnu.
So and in the other Upanishads, I explained
in several videos about the idea of the Ether.
That's where the eternal soul Atman and Brahman,
which are the flip sides of the soul exists
out of the outermost sphere
of the cosmos, the ether.
In the Katha Upanishad, on the
right hand column, the bottom.
So the Katha Upanishad is the near
death experience, where the Brahman boy,
Nachiketa is talking to the
god of death, Yama, Yamaraj.
Yama is death Raja is king.
And he says, "Tell me, what
happens to the soul after death?"
Which seems a little weird to me because he's
in the afterworld talking to death personified.
But at any rate, Yamaraj then uses the
chariot analogy in the Katha Upanishad.
And a lot of people speculate
that this influenced Plato's
chariot analogy in the Phaedrus.
But it's slightly because in the Phaedrus,
the chariot is the disembodied soul,
whereas in the Katha Upanishad, the soul
is just the passenger in the chariot.
The chariot is the body.
And the senses are the horses.
And the mind is the reins that connect the
chariot driver, which is your intelligence
to help you drive your soul down
the road of the material world.
But ultimately, you can drive your
chariot to the highest place of Vishnu.
So on the right hand column, near the bottom
page 213 he says, "He who has no understood
who has no understanding, who's unmindful
and always impure never reaches that place
but enters into the round of births.
But he who has understanding who is mindful
and always pure reaches indeed that place
from whence he is not born again.
But he who has understanding for his
charioteer and holds the reins of the mind,
he reaches the end of his journey, and
that is the highest place of Vishnu.
Beyond the senses, there are the objects.
Beyond the objects there is the mind.
Beyond the mind there's the intellect.
The great self is beyond the intellect.
Beyond the great there's the undeveloped.
Beyond the undeveloped there
is the person, Purusha.
Beyond the person there is nothing.
That is the goal, the highest road.
So the highest goal in the cave
allegory is the idea of the good.
The highest goal and the end of the
road in the Katha Upanishad is Vishnu.
He's the original self of everything."
So continuing here on page 214.
"That self is hidden in all beings and does
not shine forth but it is seen by subtle seers
through their sharp and subtle intellect."
So you can't see the idea of the good
and yet it is the source of light.
And it can only be perceived
with the eye of the soul.
And that is very similar to the Katha
Upanishad, which it's not unreasonable
to suggest Plato had some contact with given how
similar it is to his own dialogue, the Phaedrus.
Which is also about a near death experience
or actual death and rebirth experiences.
Okay, so that will be it for this video.
We've covered Part A Question
1, and Part B, Question 1 and 2.
But I just want to before signing off, just
reiterate that we're in a new era I think
of platonic studies given the
emergence of holographic string theory.
Plato says all of the absolute
ideas, this fundamental theory
of philosophy are located specifically
at the outermost sphere of the universe
where we go in between life and death.
When we die, our souls go
there, and then we come back.
And now Leonard Susskind and his
partner, Gerard't Hooft are saying
that the entire universe is being projected
from this outermost sphere of the universe,
which is exactly what Plato is saying.
The material forms emanate from the
eternal ideas or the spiritual forms.
So if they're all located at the outermost
sphere, that means the material forms
of the universe are radiating
in from the outermost sphere,
which is exactly what holographic
string theory is saying.
And it isn't like Leonard Susskind
is a secret Platonist and he's trying
to back up this ancient philosophy.
On the contrary, he presents
himself as an atheist,
who rejects all theories of ensoulded universe.
So which makes the parallels all
that more convincing, at least to me.
But of course, you don't have to be convinced by
any of that cosmology stuff, about string theory
for our class, you just have to know
the textbook that we're reading.
And you can think, "This is crazy.
It's insane.
It's dumb.
I don't agree with it."
And that's fine.
So long as you understand
what it says and then point
out the parts that you find to be ridiculous.
And even if I disagree with your opinion, if I
can tell that you've read the text have thought
about it deeply enough to say you don't
find a convincing, and then that's fine.
You don't have to worry about me
being prejudiced against people
who find Plato's theories to be crazy
because they do seem kind of crazy.
But at any rate, that'll be enough for this.
In the next videos, I'll be going
over the philosopher George Berkeley.
