Continuing with Plato's
sun, line and cave,
we're now going to talk about
"The Allegory of the Cave."
"The Allegory of the Cave" is
one of the most famous passages
in Western literature.
It's been extremely influential
on many, many, many thinkers,
and Plato did something
brilliant here.
As I said, at the end of the
talk on "The Divided Line,"
he realizes, being the
good student of Socrates,
he realizes, I've
got to go back,
and I've got to relate
this to the question of how
we ought to live our lives.
And he does that, but he
does something very clever.
He takes one of
the most universal
of mythic forms, the myth
of the heroic journey,
and he uses that in
order to illustrate
what this has to do with
how we live our lives.
The myth of the heroic
journey has been talked about
by many, many thinkers,
particular by modern thinkers.
It's ubiquitous in
ancient literature.
It's ubiquitous in literature.
It has certain features in
common every time it's told.
Someone was living
in ordinary life,
and somehow they
receive a calling.
It may be someone
they meet, it may
be some experience
they have, but they
realize that there's something
special that they have to do.
And part of a problem is they
don't quite know what it is.
At first, there's a
refusal of the calling.
I don't want to do this.
Leave me alone.
I want to live my
life, but then they
realize that the
calling is too strong.
They have to.
They have to go on this
remarkable journey.
On that journey, they encounter
all kinds of difficulties,
puzzles they must solve,
foes that they must overcome,
and they must
overcome those foes
by dealing with their own
shortcomings, their own vices.
So this is essentially
their character
growing through this journey,
through all the trials
they face on that journey.
Eventually, they
reach their goal.
Everything becomes
clear to them,
and that causes
a transformation.
They finally see who they really
are, their own true nature,
and they see what
they have to do.
Having seen that,
they also realize
that they have to return
to their point of origin
to share that gift
with everyone else.
Many people will
say, that's silly,
we knew you when you were a kid.
How can you possibly
say that you've
had this transformative
experience, you
have this special gift?
That's nonsense.
Go away.
But others will say, wait, I
want to hear this because I too
have kind of felt that
there's more to life
than I've just been
experiencing my ordinary life.
And you become the
source of the calling
to other people, who then
will embark on their journey.
Now, whose story is that?
Hm, well, let's see, Jesus,
Buddha, Obi-Wan Kenobi,
Anakin Skywalker,
Hans-- what it his name?
Han Solo, sure.
Luke Skywalker.
Actually, George Lucas
engaged Joseph Campbell,
one of the world's great
scholars of mythology,
to be a story consultant on
the original Star Wars movie.
And one of the reasons I think
why the movie grasps people's
consciousness so
vividly is because there
were some very, very deep and
universal mythic forms that
were being represented.
The great psychoanalyst,
Carl Jung,
said really a lot
of popular culture
should be understood that way.
This is a sort of a dumbed
down version of a very
universal myth, and it's really
not the medium that gets us,
it's the myth that
still resonates
with something
deep inside of us.
Well, OK, who else?
How about you?
Right, you're going
to college, you
weren't satisfied
with just a life
of do you want
fries with that, you
felt that there was
something you needed to do,
and you're now on
this journey that has,
of course, all kinds of trials,
all kinds of demands of you.
And at some point,
you're going to realize
what you're really capable
of, and what you really
have to share with the world.
OK, this is a very remarkable,
very remarkably, powerful myth.
I've had people who have written
on "The Allegory of the Cave"
for this course, who have
said you know this essentially
is the perfect allegory for this
terribly abusive relationship I
was in that I managed to
finally get myself out of it.
Or this is essentially the story
of my own road to recovery.
So it's just
brilliant on his part.
First of all, it's
amazing that everything
he achieved intellectually
with the metaphor of the sun
and the divided line
and the realization
that the role that universals
or abstract general properties
play in our knowledge, that
after all that, he says,
yeah, but it's not
complete without
this normative dimension.
This dimension that has
to do with our values,
and how we live our lives.
He goes back and he does this,
and he does it so brilliantly.
So starts off,
here we are chained
in the bottom of a cave.
All we can see are the
shadows on the wall.
We've been chained in that
position for so long that we've
become convinced that nothing is
real except for those shadows.
Those shadows are
the real world.
A person who was really bright,
who was really successful,
was a person who learns
all about the shadows
and begins to be able to predict
what the shadows will do.
What we don't see is that there
are someone back here moving,
if you will, puppets and
things are around with a fire
burning behind them and
casting those shadows.
OK, in other words, those
people are playing these people.
They, like these
people, don't actually
know that there's
anything outside the cave,
and they themselves
believe that they
are the creators of reality.
Clearly, there is some
sharp social criticism
here in Plato's thought as well.
The sophists, the cunning
political leaders,
the people who create
the illusions that
bamboozle these people who are
chained by their own ignorance,
by their own passions,
by their own prejudices.
These people don't
really understand
that there is anything beyond
the illusions they themselves
are creating.
We heard that before, right?
There is no art of navigation.
Anybody can navigate as
well as anybody else.
So at some point,
someone here realizes
he has the power to stand
up and turn around and see
where the shadows
are coming from.
How does that happen?
Well, the calling can happen
in any number of ways.
There's an old Peanuts cartoon
in which Lucy van Pelt,
I hope you know who she is.
People seem to still know who
the Peanuts characters are,
but Lucy's in a crib, and
she's got a hold of the bars
and she's yelling,
daddy, I want to get out.
And you see her climbing up the
bars, daddy, I want to get out.
And she's going over the
top of the bars, daddy,
I want to get out.
And she's climbing down the
outside the crib, daddy,
I want to get out.
Then she's running down the
hall, daddy, I want to get out.
Suddenly, she stops
dead in her tracks,
her eyes wide, and
says, I am out.
I saved that from years ago.
When I first saw it, I thought
that's very Zen like actually.
Wait a minute, I'm already out.
The only thing
that had me trapped
was that I thought
I was trapped.
Well, OK, what's got us trapped
in the bottom of the cave?
Our only illusions, our own
attachment to illusions.
Our own intellectual
laziness, our own biases,
our own ignorance.
We're chained down here, and
we forged the chains ourselves.
And as long as we
don't understand that,
we think that's just
the way the world is.
Carl Jung, who I've
mentioned a few times,
once said, until you
face the unconscious,
it will remain hidden from
you, but it will still
control your life, and
you'll just call it fate.
OK, well, it isn't fate.
It's something you're doing.
So we all had the ability to
stop forging those chains,
to stop chaining ourselves,
to stand up and turn around
and see where the
lights coming from.
It is difficult to make
your way out of that cave.
And as you're coming
to increasing degrees
of illumination, as
Socrates puts it,
your eyes are going to hurt.
It's going to be
difficult sometimes.
You're used to stumbling
around in the darkness,
you have to get
used to the light,
and that can be
painful at first.
You're going to do something
that even these people who
cast in the shadows
aren't able to do,
you're going to leave the cave.
You're the person
who is actually
facing the illuminated world.
Not these people, they're
facing down to the darkness.
Because they are obsessed
with the shadows, as much
as the people who are
chained down here.
They are just as much a slave
to the shadows as these people,
they just don't get it.
You get out into the
illuminated world,
and at first, there's so much
light, it's very difficult.
You look at the reflections
of illuminated objects,
say in pools of water.
When your eyes get
used to that, you
start looking at the
illuminated objects themselves.
When your eyes get used
to that, you finally turn
and you gaze at the sun.
You see the sun itself.
Now, understand how this
relates to the divided line.
This is all the lower part of
the divided line, the world
of opinion, the
world of becoming.
You step out into
the world of being,
the world of-- into
the intelligible world.
You at first have the laws, the
realm of lawful relationships,
which are simply
reflections of universals,
and then you're able to actually
see the universal themselves.
And then, if you keep
going, you finally,
beyond language, beyond concept,
have the direct experience
of the form of the good.
Now, people sometimes
will say, well,
Plato's supposed to
be a good writer.
Doesn't he know you
can't look directly
at sun without going blind?
My classics professor,
who was an amazing man,
he was rumored to
have actually study
with Aristotle, a very, very
old fellow, [deep voice]
and he sounded like
the voice of God.
Amazing man.
He used to point out that
the exact place where
a metaphor becomes
really illuminating
is at the point
where it breaks down.
Because you're seeing
these similarities
and these similarities
and these similarities,
now you see the
crucial difference.
OK
We can't look
directly at the sun
without blasting our
eyes because the sun is
an external energy.
The form of the good, or,
if you will, primal begin,
is our true nature.
At the point where we fully
behold the form of the good,
we're seeing our
own true nature,
and we realize that it was
never the light before the eyes,
it was always the light within
our own eyes looking out,
and now we see that.
I had a student a
number of years ago,
who took the intro philosophy
course, and a couple of months
after the course was over, like
in the middle of the summer,
I suddenly got an email
from her saying, I get it.
I finally get it.
I am the sun.
I've been the sun all along.
I thought, yah!
You plant the seed and
the sun makes it grow.
There's an old reference
again to Zen Buddhism,
or there's an old Zen
Buddhist saying, when you're
unenlightened, the sun it
the light before your eyes
that you're pursuing, but when
you finally become enlightened,
you realize that it was
the light within your eyes
all along, and you've
always carried it with you.
Now, here is the
great transformation.
You've realized
your true nature.
You've struggle all your
way out of the cave.
You've realized your true
nature, and that changes you.
It changes your
understanding of who you are.
It changes your
understanding of everything.
Then what do you do?
What does the sun do?
The sun provides light, which
allows for illumination, which
allows us to see, which
allows us to not stumble
around ignorantly in the dark.
Being gives us reality,
which makes truth possible,
which makes knowledge possible.
When you realize that
the form of the good
is your true nature,
you do exactly what
the form of the good does,
you descend into the darkness
bringing illumination,
bringing possibilities
where there was only slavery
before, bringing that freedom
that you have yourself realized.
You carry that down
as much as you can.
Now, are you going to
get a good reception?
Among some people perhaps.
But very frequently, people
are going to say, you're crazy.
Stumbling out of that cave
into the-- it's blinded you.
You're not good at
manipulating the shadows.
Just like the sailors
said, the navigator
doesn't know anything useful.
He's a useless star gazer,
we should throw him overboard
if he keeps annoying us.
But there are going to
be some people who say,
this is really intriguing, and
this sounds like something I've
suspected all along.
So let me listen, and then
let me maybe try it myself.
Of course, when
they see that there
are talented young people, who
are giving up becoming masters
of the shadows in order
to get out of the cave
and gaze at the sun,
they may charge you
with corrupting the
youth of Athens,
and execute you, which
is exactly what happened
to Socrates.
Or they may crucify you, which
is what happened to Jesus.
Nobody killed Buddha
but there were
plenty of Brahmans,
who would have loved
to do so if they thought
they could get away with it.
From the time Mohammed
first started talking out
against the superstitions
and the oppression
and the exploitation
of ordinary people,
all the entrenched powers
were trying to kill him.
You've probably seen
The Matrix, so this
may be striking a
familiar bell with you.
Actually, the Wachowski
brothers, I believe,
I never pronounce their
names exactly right.
The Wachowski
brothers said there
are several sources for the
film The Matrix, several
inspirations.
One was a-- the way it
was visually realized
was inspired by a classic
Anime, that to this day,
they will not mention
by name because they're
afraid they'll be sued.
But it's an open secret.
It's Ghost in the Shell.
And the other was the work
of a contemporary French
philosopher.
That French philosopher
was talking essentially
about Plato's "Allegory of the
Cave" for contemporary times,
given our technology.
And what he was
essentially saying was,
we're in an even
worse situation.
These people were trying
to liberate themselves
from the chains, from
the illusions created
by their own egos, their own
ignorance, their own biases,
their own passions.
We have built on top of
that old layer of illusion
a completely new layer
of artificially generated
illusions.
You'd have to drill down through
that layer of artificially
generated illusions, which
is where most of us live,
to actually get to the
old layer of illusions
that people have
for millennia have
been trying to escape from.
So if anything, our
situation is worse.
There is a film called-- another
popular culture reference here,
a film by Bertolucci,
an Italian filmmaker,
and I don't personally consider
it one of his better films.
It's kind of a rather old film.
You've probably won't have
an opportunity to see it,
and I'm not saying go
right out and see it,
but it's called The Conformist.
And it's about a man who is
pretty much an nonentity,
and he's living in
Italy at the time
that fascism is on
the rise in Italy.
And little by little by little,
he's compromising himself
until finally, he doesn't
recognize himself anymore.
And at one point,
he goes to talk
with one of his old
college professors,
and he asks the professor,
what is happening to us?
What's going on?
How are we changing
ourselves in this way?
And his professor
sits back and says,
we are chained by our own fears.
We're chained in
the bottom of a cave
and all we can see
is the shadows,
and if we remain
here long enough,
we'll become convinced
that there never
was anything but the shadows.
I remember thinking
when I heard that, wow.
Nazism explained in terms of
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."
Well, why not?
Once you understand the
power of this allegory,
it has such tremendous
applicability.
So why become a navigator?
Why get out of the cave?
Because as Bertrand
Russell put it,
a good life is the life guided
by reason and inspired by love.
You've got to do both, and the
form of the good is about both.
You know Plato-- and
Russell in his last chapter
says something to the
effect of, well, you know,
Plato-- I think it's
the last chapter,
says something to the
effect of, well, Plato
is very interested in
this abstract world.
If you like the flesh and blood
world of human relationships,
you probably won't
find Plato appealing.
The fact is Plato mentions love
in his dialogues four times
as often as he mentions logic.
He understood.
It's not enough simply to
be able to see clearly,
you also have to care.
This is a liberation not
only of the intellect,
but of the heart.
It's a liberation of
your entire being.
If you don't
understand it that way,
you don't get the
transformation.
You don't just learn
something really cool
and then go back and tell other
people, hey, you're idiots.
You don't know anything.
You become something different.
And this is, I think,
the key to understanding
what Plato's philosophical
career was really all about,
and what he saw in Socrates.
