The relevance of Plato’s cave allegory for modern times: an exploration

Melanie Reinhart, November 2015

Plato in his Academy (Anon, 1879)

We inept ones admire too much certain very insignificant things … but blind and

ungrateful, we have long since stopped admiring the very great things we used to

respect. … let us move forth into the light with the fortunate inspiration of goodness

itself, that is God on high (Voss, 2006: 190,210).

In this consideration of Plato’s allegory of the cave, from Book VII of The Republic, I will

argue that it remains as relevant for today’s world as it has done ever since it was first written.

The timelessness of this allegory rests in the fact that it points to a reality beyond the

multivalence of its enduring motifs – imprisonment, awakening from illusion, and the sun as

representing The Good or The One – and invites the reader to enter a realm “invisible even to

the inquiring” (Plato, 2011: 51189). While it can be understood as an induction into the

ancient mystical cosmology articulated elsewhere by Plato, for example in Timaeus (Plato,

2011: 41625ff) it can also be said to have “ahistorical continuity” (Versluis, 2004: 10). The

material will be explored through etymological associations and by considering the fourfold

hermeneutic as outlined in The Moment of Astrology (Cornelius, 2003: 277), acknowledging

that it will be understood by individuals “according to their receptive capacity” (Pseudo-

Dionysius, 1957: 30). The development of scientific cosmology will be briefly traced,

offering a background rationale for the literalism of contemporary attitudes. The approach

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taken throughout will include and consider the symbolic and imaginal dimensions of

meaning, with final reference to physical birth as metaphor of awakening, inherent in human

existence.

The allegory of the cave

This time-honoured story presents a tutelary dialogue between Socrates, principal teacher of

Plato, and Glaucon, a disciple. Socrates describes the plight of some prisoners who are

chained to the wall of a cave: they can neither move nor turn their heads and are condemned

to see only the cave wall in front of them. Behind and above them is a low wall behind which

pedestrians pass, carrying various objects. A fire burns, causing shadows to display on the

interior wall at which the prisoners stare. Seeing these shadows, and hearing the echo of

voices outside the cave, the prisoners mistakenly believe them to be real.

(Schmidt, 2013)

Should a prisoner be released and become aware of the error of his perceptions, on first

emerging into the light he will suffer pain. Unable to see the new reality, he believes it to be

an illusion. Initially, he persists in seeing his former shadow-world as the ‘real’ one, but will

gradually become accustomed to the upper world.

And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men … and then the

objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the

spangled heaven; and he will see [them] … better than the sun or the light of the sun

by day (Plato, 2011: 26128).

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The one released undergoes further challenges. Should he return to the cave, he may be

ridiculed or even persecuted by those who remain imprisoned. He suffers, “either from

coming out of the light or from going into the light” (Plato, 2011: 26128). He is warned

against taking short-cuts, and against the misuse of his intelligence and will. However, he is

not permitted to remain in the beatific upper realms presided over by the sun, but must

descend again to those below, to “partake of their labours and honours, whether they are

worth having or not” (Plato, 2011: 26220). He is to help educate the people, and to be

available for the responsibility of leadership, even if he does not desire personal eminence. In

short, it is his duty to help liberate the people from illusion, so that they may contribute to the

positive development of society.1

Socrates issues a warning of great significance when understood in the context of later

developments in Western philosophy and cosmology that led to the prevailing literalism of

today’s materialistic views: “… those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to

make us look downward and not upward” (Plato, 2011: 26425). Glaucon asks how we might

then learn subjects such as astronomy “in a manner more conducive to that knowledge of

which we are speaking” (Plato, 2011: 26443). In reply, Socrates underlines the difference

between intuitive insight (noesis) served by reason (dianoia), and physical sight which

engenders fantasy and belief (eikasia and pistis):

“The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore,

although the fairest and most perfect of visible things … these are to be apprehended

by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. … The spangled heavens should be used

as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge. (Plato, 2011: 26446, my

italics).

The eye, sight and the light

A brief etymological exploration follows, in the manner of Plato’s Cratylus.2 Plato was born

in Athens, where he lived most of his life and in c.387 BCE founded an academy which

endured until 529 CE. The goddess Athena was patroness to the city, as “she who has the

mind of God – theonoa”.3 Her theriomorphic representation is the owl, known for its sharp

sight and night vision. Lacking this capacity, to ‘see in the darkness’, the enchained and

1 This bears a striking resemblance to the Bodhisattva figure in the Buddhist tradition (Santideva 2004: vii,

translator’s introduction). 2 In Cratylus (Plato, 2011: 11108ff) etymological discussions may be witty, satirical, imaginative or

metaphorical, and declared as such, for e.g. at 11457. 3 For further discussion of the etymology of the name ‘Athene’ see Plato (2011: 12778).

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deluded (literally ‘light-less’) inhabitants of the cave reject the one returning from the realm

of light.

Athenian Tetradrachm c. 410 CE (cgb.fr, n.d.)

Etymologically, the name ‘Glaucon’ parallels the meaning of Athene’s name. According to

Morwood and Taylor (2002), the name ‘Glaucon’ derives from the Greek glaukommatos

(γλαυκóμμαтς) meaning ‘bright-eyed’, ‘owl-eyed’ or ‘grey-eyed’. The character of Glaucon

contains ambiguities, rendering him a suitable foil or interlocutor for the teachings of

Socrates. For example, a cryptic statement mentions “a longer and a shorter way”, and “the

way in which Glaucon was unable to follow” (Plato, 2011: 1481). He is described elsewhere

as an impetuous youth, who “has trouble in apprehending the higher education of Socrates

and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion” (Plato, 2011: 18541).

Both names hint at the underlying meaning of the allegory, referring to ‘sight’ and also ‘night

vision’ (the owl). The contrast between the darkness of the cave interior and the light of the

sun outside also builds upon Plato’s discussion of the ‘Dividing Line’ motif. This precedes

the allegory of the cave, and offers a schema which elaborates how the capacity for reason,

knowledge and intuitive intelligence should be discerned and divided from faith, conviction

and imagining, in the sense of fantasy and illusion (Plato, 2011: 26063).

Levels of interpretation

The hermeneutic of fourfold interpretation as described in The Moment of Astrology

(Cornelius 2003: 277) further illuminates our allegory. At the first and literal level, Glaucon

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is simply a disciple of Socrates, who describes to him a scene of people imprisoned in a cave.

At the second level, the allegorical, the story demonstrates people becoming free of illusion.

Here, the presence of Glaucon is a teaching device – he represents ‘the pupil’.4 In English,

this word offers a playful pun referring us again to the eye. Socrates explores the allegorical

connection between deity, the sun, and the eye in The Republic, Bk VI (Plato, 2011: 26026),

and in the Simile of the Sun (Plato 2005: 88) eyes and sight are analogously connected with

both the actual sun and also the metaphor of the sun as The Good, The One, or the divine

source:5 “… the eye’s power of sight is a kind of infusion dispensed to it by the sun” (Plato,

2005: 90). Further, Socrates reminds Glaucon that “The realm revealed by sight corresponds

to the prison, and the light of the fire … to the realm of the sun” (Plato, 2005: 101).

“And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine,

the soul perceives and understands and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned

towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and …

seems to have no intelligence” (Plato, 2011: 26034)

At the third or tropological level, “[t]he soul turns towards truth” (Cornelius, 2003:280), as in

a conversion experience. Here, the etymology derives from the Latin convertere, ‘to turn, turn

back, be turned, transform, translate, be changed’ (Harper, 2001). While chained at the neck,

the prisoner is unable to turn and look towards the light (Plato, 2011: 26128). However,

having been released, he is required to ‘re-turn’ to those still enchained in the shadowy world

of the cave. In this multivalent symbolism, physical sight parallels spiritual blindness.

This tropological ‘turning’ anticipates the fourth level, the mystical or anagogical. The light

of the fire is transcended, subsumed in the sun: the soul’s longing for union with The Good is

fulfilled as its radiance is revealed, reminding us of the ineffable light beyond physical form.

At this level, the power of the story draws the reader upwards out of the cave and into the

light as the separate, distinct forms of word and allegorical interpretation fade into the

illuminating presence and mystery of The One. The multivalent references to sight and vision

serve to evoke both a sense of ‘inner seeing’ and also of ‘being seen’. In The Book of the Sun,

Marsilio Ficino elaborates the notion of the sun as a metaphor for The Good (Voss, 2006:

188-213), also reminding us that the physical sun is not God Himself:

4 This is a common literary device used in descriptions of initiatory dialogues and events. For example, see

Santideva (2004: 121ff) and Castaneda, C. (1969). 5 See also Jowett’s introduction to The Republic (2011) where its meaning is extended into Christian

iconography (Plato, 2011: 18450).

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Moreover although the Sun is exceedingly far removed from the Creator of the world,

nevertheless all celestial things appear by divine law to lead back to the one Sun, the

Lord and regulator of the heavens. … And finally considering that, let us worship this

one first principle with that same ritual observance that all celestial things give to the

Sun (Voss, 2006: 213).

Heliocentricity, imaginal and literal

Using the Jungian notion of ‘the collective unconscious’ (Jung, 1959: 42), the cosmology

within which Plato’s work is embedded can be considered to exist as a ‘hereditary trace’

within the sub-structure of present-day consciousness. The Platonic cosmology analogizes the

sun as representing the centre and source of all the myriad forms of eternal becoming. “For

according to Plato, the highest God, who in The Republic he calls The Good, and in

Parmenides, The One, is not only above soul and intellect, but is even superior to being itself”

(Taylor, 2003: 3). This ancient view, imaginal in nature, offers a radical alternative to current

astronomical theory which has been developed according to the methods, speculations and

beliefs of secular materialism.

During the 16th

Century, the Copernican

Revolution overturned the geocentric

view of the world in favour of the

heliocentric model.

This was superseded, in the 20th

century

and onwards, by discoveries made

possible through spectacular increases in

technological capacity.

Copernicus 1473-1543 (Anon, 1580)

Our solar system is now known to revolve around the distant galactic centre, said to consist of

a cluster of black holes. And it, in turn, is merely one amongst an unknown number of

galaxies. Although the heliocentric cosmos existed as an imaginal reality long before the time

of Copernicus, the discovery of physical and literal heliocentricity has paralleled the loss, in

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mainstream philosophy, of the ancient imaginal understanding of the sun as representing the

mystery of The One.

The impact of this paradigm shift should not be underestimated: humanity now inhabits a

cosmos from which the very centre has been eliminated. Neither earth nor sun provide a sense

of imaginal centrality to which we can refer or defer. In his poem The Second Coming, W. B.

Yeats laments that “the centre cannot hold” (Yeats, 1994: 158): the human soul remains

‘imprisoned in the cave’, in the realms of centre-less materiality and distraction.

The intricate diagrams of

Aristarchus (c.310-230 BCE)

demonstrate the earliest extant

mathematical attempts to prove

literal heliocentricity, as shown in

this 10th

century Greek copy, left

(Violatti, 2013).

Reason and reaction

From the later period of the Academy, the differing approaches of Plato and his disciple

Aristotle began to be seen as polarized and conflictual. This trend continued with the

progressive over-development of the left hemisphere of the brain until “unchecked,

acquisitive rationalism in science, capitalism and bureaucracy took hold” (McGilchrist, 2009:

241). However, according to Gregory Shaw “… contemporary scholars have misread the

Platonists by anachronistically projecting on them a physicalist worldview” (2015:277).

Naydler, writing in Plato, Aristotle and the Union of Opposites, sees these two philosophers

as complementary, rather than oppositional (Naydler 2007: 18). Joseph Milne expresses

similar views (Milne, 2013: 9ff). McGilchrist has the soul as “prisoner in the body, awaiting

the liberation of death” (2009: 264), contrasting with Thomas Taylor, in The Platonic

Philosopher’s Creed (Taylor, n.d.: 3, my italics):

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… the world considered as one great comprehending whole is a divine animal, so

likewise every whole which it contains is a world, possessing in the first place a self-

perfect unity proceeding from the ineffable, by which it becomes a God; in the second

place, a divine intellect; in the third place, a divine soul; and in the last place a deified

body.

Almost a millennium after Plato’s Academy closed, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) played a

crucial role in retrieving the significance of Plato’s work, rendering it newly accessible

through Latin translations which inspired the flowering of Neoplatonism during the

Renaissance period. However, the ‘Age of Reason’, sometimes called the ‘Enlightenment’,

was to follow the reign of the ‘Sun King’.

The grandeur of Louis XIV, the

‘Sun King’ (1638-1715), illustrates

the image of the sun, representing

the divine, being usurped by the

monarchy.

van Diepenbeeck (1660)

Dieterich (1794)

During the 18th

century, the

tumultuous times of the French

Revolution (1789-99), the

Cathedral of Notre Dame in

Strasbourg was ransacked and

re-designated as the ‘Temple of

Reason’.

.

This ‘Cult of Reason’ exhibited the worship of reason, rather than its cultivation and

application in the Platonic sense. Considering Plato’s image of the ‘Dividing Line’, we can

understand the violence of this movement to have been excluding reason and aligning instead

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with belief, conviction, fantasy and illusion. It was also an example of enantiodromia where

something has progressed to an extreme and spontaneously turns into its opposite: “As in its

collective, mythological form, so also the individual shadow contains within it the seed of an

enantiodromia, of a conversion into its opposite” (Jung, 1959: 272 and 1956: 375).

In the Romantic Movement that followed we see a different reaction, a counterpoint to the

burgeoning industrial revolution “… the very basis of industrialization [is] to objectify every

aspect of life, including people, who are reduced to machinelike functionaries … everything

becomes a matter of techné, or manipulation” (Versluis, 2004: 6). The art of the Pre-

Raphaelites and the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley offer examples of

the Romantic sensibility: a revival of interest in the mythic figures and deities of ancient

Greece and the power of imagination, an appreciation of classical beauty and an idealization

of nature.

Since the 17th

century and up to the present, various esoteric orders such as the Rosicrucians,

the Freemasons and the Theosophists have been flourishing. Some claim guidance from

‘invisible masters’ (Lachman 2012: 282ff) or an ancient lineage, or connection to the ‘Golden

Chain’ (Uzdavinys, 2004: xxi). Although this phenomenon may have “ahistorical continuity”

(Versluis, 2004: 10) rather than a direct person-to-person transmission through recorded

history (Uzdavinys, 2004: xxi), crucially, all are concerned with a process of spiritual

awakening, as symbolised by Plato’s allegory of the cave. Indeed, “Western esotericism

represents the reverse or inverse of modernity” (Versluis, 2004: 6). According to Gary

Lachman, Madame Blavatksy (1831-1891), the founder of Theosophy, is ‘The Mother of

Modern Spirituality’:

Her mission was, in fact, to revive and revitalise the ancient Hermetic and Neo-

Platonic tradition, in which the divine spark sunk into creation longs to return to its

source, and which came to be known in our time as ‘occultism’ (Lachman, 2012: 103).

Here again is our ‘cave metaphor’, surfacing in recent times and linked to ‘the occult’, serving

as a counterfoil to the prevailing secular rationalism and materialism. Although this word

means ‘concealed, hidden, secret’, today ‘the occult’ is perhaps ‘hiding in plain sight’.

Popular culture since the 1960s has demonstrated a particular identification with a core motif

of Plato’s cave allegory – the search for freedom and ‘enlightenment’6. However, without the

6 See the work of Gary Lachman for a general history of occultism (2005); with particular focus on the 1960s

(2009, Kindle edition 2012).

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subtlety of philosophical thinking required to reach towards the anagogical level, reverence

disappears and the sun becomes emblematic of a cult of individualism and a Crowleyan

determination to “Do what thou wilt” (Lachman, 2012: 960).

Cave-Man, Machine-Man and silver screens

In exploring Plato’s allegory of imprisonment in the cave, Fehrman points out that “… the

shadows on the wall are analogous to the images on the screens we surround ourselves with

… [like] invisible chains of mesmerization (Fehrman 2014: 8, 2). Further, I would suggest

that our reactions to feeling thus imprisoned may partly explain the popularity of figures like

King Kong, Tarzan and Rambo, ‘superheroes’ who embody fantasies such as the destruction

of civilization, the glamorization of violence, power, physicality and brutality. These figures

represent a primitive force endeavouring to overthrow the oppression of a materialistic and

rationalistic society.

The film Avatar portrays the human longing for a return to the mythic, the natural, the sacred

and the communal – by total escape from the earth. At a profit of three trillion dollars and

counting, it is the highest grossing movie of all time (Avatar, 2009), offering a veritable

compendium of contemporary themes. The story echoes Plato’s allegory of the cave, notably

in the motif of ‘seeing’ and also the liberation of the hero, Jake Sully. Wounded and

paralysed, Jake is embroiled with an earth-based culture seeking to colonise and exploit the

Na’vi, a celestial race inhabiting the moon of Polyphemus, a fictional planet orbiting Alpha

Centauri.7 The voracious earthlings seek a precious metal whimsically called ‘unobtainium’,

located at the root of the ‘Soul Tree’ on which they mount an attack.

During a near-death scene, Jake murmurs “I see you” to his beloved Neytiri, a Na’vi woman.

He awakens, irrevocably transformed into a Na’vi himself. “ … ‘To see’ is a fundamental

principle of [their] philosophy. To open the mind and heart to the present” (Cameron, 2015).

The militarized, forest-destroying, exploiters have been routed, but Jake survives. Those still

captive to their violent, mechanized ways are left to their own devices, abandoned on earth.

As a ‘message’, this certainly contrasts with Plato’s emphasis on the responsibility of the

7 The constellation of Centaurus is the post-mortem abode of Chiron, the cave-dwelling centaur. For an

exploration of the symbolism of the centaur as a figure of psycho-spiritual transition, see Reinhart (2010:

15,49,51).

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awakened ones to return and help those still living in the dark. The finale, a successful

overthrowing of the tyrannical earthlings, portrays what could be seen as a regression to

utopian fantasy – eikasia rather than noesis.

Jeremy Naydler has drawn attention to the historical development of the fantasy of the

‘Machine-Man’, and its increasing hold on the collective imagination (Naydler, 2009: 14-29).

“If we should permit this … we will be in jeopardy not merely of succumbing to the sub-

human but of … something much more malign” (Naydler 2009: 24-25). Quoting the post-

modernist writer Lyotard, Naydler warns that this would be “to be inhabited by the inhuman”

(Naydler 2009: 25, author’s italics) and points out that “For many people today the danger

would appear to lie … in excessive rationality” (Naydler 2009: 4). “Only when our thinking is

grounded in the heart, so that it is contemplative and prayerful, does it become truly human”

(Naydler 2009: 10). The post-modernist Baudrillade expresses similar sentiments, referring to

“... the visible machinery of icons substituted for the pure and intelligible Idea of God”

(Baudrillard 1994: 4). In Technology and the Soul, Naydler writes of the acronym CAVE,

which stands for ‘Cave Automatic Virtual Environment’, a specific reference to Plato’s

allegory. This new technology promises to extend “our screen-interface technologies of

television, computer, mobile phone and so on … [so] we would be all the more immersed in

the experience” (Naydler 2008: 19). “Seeing is believing” is the tagline of the ‘Oculus Rift’,

another such device that draws the user into the ‘cave of illusion’.8

In The Matrix (1999), Plato’s cave allegory is explicitly invoked near the beginning, and the

choice between painful truth and pleasant illusion is soon presented. As in Avatar, those

eventually freed from ‘the matrix’ seem unconcerned about those still caught in it. Neo, hero

of The Matrix, has to make the choice to be ‘The One’, the implication being that he always

has been, and indeed, is intrinsically ‘The One’. 9

However, this conflation of personal and

deific identity does not necessarily equate with an ‘awakening’ in the Platonic sense. Rather,

taking a psychological perspective, I would argue that it may encourage a potentially

dangerous sense of omnipotence. In their article Wake Up! Flannery-Dailey and Wagner

criticise The Matrix on the grounds that “violence is directly linked with salvation” (Flannery-

Dailey, 2005: 281), that there is an “awakening to a dismal cyber-world, which is the real

8 See https://www.oculus.com/en-us/rift/

9 Many ‘New Age’ writings or media productions contain a similar message. For example, see the controversial

material in The Secret (2006) by Rhonda Byrne.

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material world” (Flannery-Dailey, 2005: 283, my italics), and that “... various religious and

philosophical traditions are subsumed under a violent version of apocalyptic Christianity”

(Flannery-Dailey, 2005: 286).

Birth and rebirth

Historically, caves, hollows, tombs and underground places have been sacred to ‘the Mother’

(Neumann, 1972: 39ff). Here, deities would speak, or sanctuary would be sought for healing

rituals such as the death and rebirth experiences associated with the Cave of Trophonius

(Meier, 1989: 77ff). We are all born from the womb of the mother, and may be ‘reborn’,

healed, or spiritually awakened through symbolic processes which echo our biological

origins. If we accept that there is an interchange between soul, intellect and body as

emanations of The One (Taylor, n.d.: 3), then it follows not only that Plato’s cave allegory

references birth as a multi-levelled metaphor, but also that it may evoke in the reader a

subliminal trace memory of actual birth.

During the latter part of the 20th

century, as psychological theory matured, the age threshold at

which the human being could be considered sentient was pushed back earlier and earlier by

the work of a number of pioneering researchers. The list includes Otto Rank, Frank Lake,

Stanislav Grof, Arthur Janov, Francis J. Mott, David Wasdell, Nandor Fodor, Karl König,

R.D. Laing, David Boadella and many others.10

Notwithstanding the occasional tendency for

a certain reductionism which implies biological notions of causality, their illumination of the

perinatal areas of human experience continues to provide a significant challenge to

mainstream psychology and the essentially materialistic worldview within which it operates

(Wasdell, 1994: 31). Just as the prisoners in the cave represent those who are enchained by

the limitation of their beliefs, so does the work of these authors serve to liberate early 20th

century psychological theory from its own illusions and conceptual shortcomings. Notable

amongst these is Francis J. Mott, who describes how the fetus experiences itself as ‘The

Shining One’, the sun, or the solar hero who dies and is always reborn (Mott 2012: 357ff and

2013: 13-35). A deeply interior ‘solarity’ is claimed, a physical counterpart to the Platonic

contemplation of the celestial sun.

10

Indicative texts by these writers are listed under ‘References’.

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We come full circle, remembering that we start our earthly life by being liberated from the

darkness of the womb into the light of day – a literal enactment of the allegory of the cave

which also alludes to “the primal act of knowing” (Versluis, 2004: 6) or spiritual awakening.

In the words of Hadot, “Such is the lesson of ancient philosophy: an invitation to each human

being to transform himself. Philosophy is a conversion, a transformation of ones way of living

and being, and a quest for wisdom. This is not an easy matter” (Hadot 1995:275).

_______________________________________

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