Glaucon gets so excited in this image. He says, take me out there, take me every step of the way, show me the idea of the good. Don't shut up until we see the idea of the good.
And Socrates says, I'm sorry I can't take you there. In fact, I've never been there. I don't know what it's like, but I know it exists.
That's philosophy. You've got to make the journey yourself. Socrates next gives us the image of the allegory of the cave.
Let's imagine for a moment that this is a cave. And Socrates says, imagine there were people sitting in the cave, chained to the ground, looking at the wall at the bottom of the cave. And then he suggests that there's some path up the cave and there are more people. up here and they're holding things like an apple maybe. And there's a fire behind them.
And the fire casts light onto the image and so the people in the bottom of the cave only see the image cast by the fire under the wall of the cave. They don't actually see the apple. And then outside the cave we've got puddles and trees maybe with real apples on them. And at the very top, the sun.
Now, Socrates puts this into a drama. And he first says, okay, those prisoners down at the bottom of the cave, they're like us. And that's perplexing. How are we like prisoners? He says, we are bound.
That's something to reflect on. The chains that prevent us from looking at the truth of things. Vanity, fear, pride. So many things in our nature.
that attach us to the things that we think we know are true and prevent us from making the turn. So Socrates asks us to imagine what it would be like if someone's chains were broken and they were forced to turn around and make their way up to the next level of the cave. What's that experience like? When you're in a dark room and someone flips on the light, it hurts, it's painful.
But the pain is not a bad pain. Because it's better to be in light than to be in dark. But sometimes our reaction is to want to stay in the dark.
Socrates beautifully describes education as a breaking of the chains and a turning of the soul. It's a language you use. All education is turning. It's not putting knowledge into a brain that's not there. It's turning the interior of the soul so it can see correctly.
What a beautiful image for education. And this image, by the way, is an image of edu... of education, of liberal education. Our very word, education, is from this image in Plato's Republic, ae ducere, to lead out from the cave. So the prisoner is dragged into the next level and sees the next level of people holding these images and casting the shadows on the wall.
They are the image makers. Image makers. Who are the image makers? Who are the image makers in our own culture? Think about it.
I assume that you've seen commercials before. How do they work? Image makers.
They cast images. The nice car. The nice clothing.
Casting images into our souls to do what? To help us reimagine reality a different way and to then desire those things that are being cast. Think at a deeper level about the very Language we use.
And then I want you to think about this. How deeply our contact with reality is mediated by the images we've gotten. But Socrates wants to suggest to us that all of knowledge in some sense involves interpreting reality through images. But then the question is, do the image makers actually know enough to make the images?
What is the goal? Do we want these prisoners to see reality as it is? Or are we manipulating? Do you see that the whole area of this part of the cave could be a layer of just pure manipulation? But Socrates says, no, there's more.
Keep going. We can get outside the cave and now we're ready for it. It hurts.
This time because the sun is a lot brighter than the fire. Philosophy is the movement from those images to things to the forms to the idea of the good. Philosophy is the love of the thing at the top here, the idea of the good itself. And Socrates tells us about the break in the chains. He says, imagine if the philosopher were to go back in to the cave and tell the prisoners, hey, you guys would not believe what I just saw.
What do you think the prisoners do? Hey, take us, let's go. Some of them might, but most of them say, you're talking nonsense. Stop undermining our beliefs about these images on the wall. And this is Socrates'account.
When the prisoner who'd been released keeps telling them, they threatened to kill him. Wow, threatened to kill him. In other words, the cave is like the city of Athens.
The cave is like any city. All political regimes are somewhat cave-like. All of us are prisoners in some sense.
All of us see images. And we want to make that journey. How do we make it?
That's philosophy. You've got to make the journey yourself.