1 Plato 1 · On the Cave and the Light. Handed down at the Academy, from his Republic
From the Republic, written when Plato was about fifty, in ten books. It begins with one question — what is justice — and in answering it becomes the plan of a city and then a theory of knowledge. The cave is in the seventh book. This volume takes only the cave: the descent, the turning, the ascent, the return, and that by which one sees. For the man, see the Gospel of Plato. What is set down here runs from his fortieth year to his seventieth; in the fourth chapter he states plainly that he no longer agrees with himself, and does not strike out the older view. Where the Good is spoken of, the Order takes it in the smaller sense: that which makes each thing be what it is, and is not itself among things.
1.1Glaucon, I want you to picture something. When you have pictured it, you will know what we are.
1.2There is a cave, and it is deep. In it are people who have been there since childhood.
1.3Their necks and their legs are bound, so that they can look in one direction only, at the wall.
1.4Behind them there is a fire. Between the fire and them runs a road, and along the road men carry objects past.
1.5They cannot see the fire, or the road, or the men.
1.6They see only the shadows the objects throw on the wall.
1.7All their lives they have seen nothing but shadows, and so they call the shadows "things". (cf. The Highest Covenant 2.2)
1.8Among them are clever ones who can tell which shadow comes first and which comes after.
1.9The rest honour these as wise men and set garlands on them.
1.10And they are clever. They know the order of the shadows better than anyone.
1.11Understand this: such a man has not lied, and he has not said anything false.
1.12Inside the cave every sentence he speaks is true.
1.13It is only that the word "true" is one size smaller in there.
1.14I am not describing other people. Glaucon, I am describing you, and myself.