Plato is an ancient Greek thinker whose beliefs significantly affected the development of modern philosophy as a science. The myth of Plato’s cave is a well-known allegory that is considered one of the critical concepts of objective idealism. The metaphor of prisoners chained in the dark is a myth’s core applied to explain the hardship of attaining and maintaining a just and intellectual spirit. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a timeless characterization of the distinction between appearances and reality, prompting humanity to step out of the ignorance into the glow of sunlight.
The Divided Line is another concept that separates the world into perceived and cognized. It can be considered a theoretical basis for the Allegory of the Cave, representing humankind’s experience in exploring the visible and comprehensible globe. The correspondence of the four phases of The Cave can be related to the four types of knowledge in The Divided Lines (Bonazzi, 2020). The visual world of the cave resembles the assumption about the mirror images, while the natural objects whose images cast shadows symbolize mathematical reasoning. The cognitive method of conceptual thinking is attributed to the parable of lines, and the perception of the sky corresponds in this scheme to the mind’s cognition.
Allegory of the Cave can be divided into several levels of awareness, each characterized by distinctive features. The first stage is the cave captives, accustomed to believing in shadows and illusions. Only a few manage to reach the second stage, liberation, attained through questioning, research, and study. Acceptance can be considered the third and most challenging level because it involves abandoning previous beliefs. Plato assumed that the past determines the experience of the present, which is a reason for a suggestion that radical change in the way one understands things must necessarily lead to discomfort (Bonazzi, 2020). Finally, the return involves the culmination of learning between diverse realities. This level consists of disseminating new ideas that may cause confusion, contempt, or hatred for having the indiscretion to question the fundamental dogmas that structure society.
The significance of Plato’s ideas has remained intact even after thousands of years. New interpretations and studies have emerged, but his allegories have not renounced their relevance among others. Their prominence is also evident in the twenty-first century when the issue of people’s attachment to social networks is especially acute. People spend a considerable amount of time on media and, realizing their attachment, cannot find the strength to stop. Once on a social network, people are immersed in virtual life, and the concern is that all of this fascinating, vibrant life has nothing in common with reality (Bonazzi, 2020). Therefore, social networks are a cave in which people are imprisoned, and all the photos, videos, posts are shadows reflecting on the walls of this cave.
Creating an ideal image on the Internet is much more effortless, and that is why people try to escape from all the troubles and burdens to another globe. The concern is that this happiness is constructed on illusions and fantasies, which Plato urges to abandon. His allegory promotes an understanding of man’s active role in transforming the world and realizing that only reality is valid and unchanging, so one must strive to comprehend rather than resist it.
There are also instances in my life related to media that can be compared to Plato’s analogies and teachings. One example is the constant monitoring of data from the virtual world, including social media and the rest of the Internet. I often take all publications as accurate, ignoring that the reality that these sources of information represent is only a shadow of what they want to share. Thus, I sink into a cave that distances me from the truth by consuming information without questioning it. This example also corresponds to the four types of wisdom: knowledge-imaging, belief, thinking, and perfect intelligence. At the imagining stage, I took data from social media as truth. Then, I gained faith as I realized that these facts and actual events did not correlate, which led to many reflections and thinking. In the end, I broke free of false beliefs, learned to judge more critically, and realized the necessity of comparing the objective and the imaginary.
The interpretation of Plato’s cave is broad, but its primary meaning remains unchanged. It represents the sensual world and everyday experience, where everything is uncertain and constantly changing. The imprisoned ordinary people live in a world of speculation and illusion. At the same time, the former prisoners who are allowed to wander in the cave hold the most accurate view of reality possible in the shifting world of perception and experience (Bonazzi, 2020). Not everyone is willing to step out of the cave and strive for objective reality, as conformity to attitudes often seems the easier path to existence. The essence of this concept is what Plato tried to refute in his allegory, claiming that the world outside the cave is actual existence, filled with unchanging and ideal objects of cognition.
The query of the limits of cognition and the relativity of mental abilities, once posed by Plato with The Allegory of the Cave, permeates all of modern society. It is the first time in history that the distinction between reality and its ideas has been profoundly and figuratively articulated. Plato strives to educate that the fundamental nature of things is complex, and not everyone can cross the boundary between the visible and the real. However, by taking this step, it is feasible to understand the world of ideas, break away from the illusory nature of everyday perception of reality, and cognize the essence.
Reference
Bonazzi, M. (2020). Daemons in the Cave: Plutarch on Plato and the Limits of Politics. Mnemosyne, 73(1), 63-86.