The Allegory Of Belief

Plato had this analogy, an allegory, with which he described the putting of faith into the unknown because of what you see.

Literal sight provoked his philosophical thoughts, which led him to this analogy.

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It went something like this...

Plato imagines prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners, there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see.

Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows.

So when the prisoners talk, what are they talking about ?

If an object (a book, let us say) is carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on the wall, and a prisoner says “I see a book,” what is he talking about?

He thinks he is talking about a book, but he is talking about a shadow. But he uses the word “book.” What does that refer to?

Plato gives his answer as -

“And if they could talk to one another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the names they used applied to the things they see passing before them?”

Plato’s point is that the prisoners would be mistaken. For they would be taking the terms in their language to refer to the shadows that pass before their eyes, rather than (as is correct, in Plato’s view) to the real things that cast the shadows.

If a prisoner says “That’s a book” he thinks that the word “book” refers to the very thing he is looking at. But he would be wrong. He’s only looking at a shadow. The real referent of the word “book” he cannot see. To see it, he would have to turn his head around.

Plato’s point: the general terms of our language are not “names” of the physical objects that we can see. They are names of things that we cannot see, things that we can only grasp with the mind.

When the prisoners are released, they can turn their heads and see the real objects. Then they realize their error. What can we do that is analogous to turning our heads and seeing the causes of the shadows? We can come to grasp the Forms with our minds.

Plato’s aim in the 'Republic' is to describe what is necessary for us to achieve this reflective understanding. But even without it, it remains true that our very ability to think and to speak depends on the Forms. For the terms of the language, we use to get their meaning by “naming” the Forms that the objects we perceive participate in.

The prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with the shadows of books. But they would be mistaken if they thought that the word “book” refers to something that any of them has ever seen.

Likewise, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical objects. But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts that we grasp were on the same level as the things we perceive

We, humans, are these 'prisoners' when it comes to any form of knowledge, mainly if it goes against our views.

See, what Plato later described in the 'Republic' is that when one of the prisoners was set free and was allowed to see everything behind the fire, the sheer absurdity before him was so overwhelming that he ran back to the Jailor and asked to be 'imprisoned' again.

When we devise proof of God,'s existence or come up with some mathematical formula to prove the General Unified Theory, that goes against our traditional beliefs or procedures, be it written in scrolls or documents, our instinctive reaction is to run back to familiarity.

What Plato also said was that the Jailer forced the prisoner out of the cave and showed him the surroundings of the outside world.

After some amounts of flailing, the prisoner's eyes adjusted to the blinding sun. He then was then amazed by its beauty.

"The worst deception of all, is self-deception"

Plato

What if we are constantly in a state of denial, not agreeing with the facts presented to us because it goes against our 'Dystopian' belief, running back to the 'Jailer' who had imprisoned us all this time, when we were wishing to be set free, only to come back and ask to be sheltered from what we view as an allegoric monstrosity?

Or are we just waiting to be blinded by the radiance of someone with intellectuality so bright, that we are blinded for a moment, only to rejoice at the wonder of our subjective sight, and forget the shadows on our cave walls?