The Republic VII The Allegory of the Cave (excerpt) Plato1
PRE-READING QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. What do you know about the Allegory of the Cave? What kind of things might you be reminded of because of the word “cave”? I think of the
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What is the nature of our soul? Whether will our nature be enlightened or unenlightened?
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Socrates(S) : Now compare our condition with this: Picture men having in a cave which has a wide mouth open towards the light. They are kept in the same places, looking forward only away from the mouth and unable to turn their heads, for their legs and necks have been fixed in chains from brain. A fire is burning higher up at their backs, and between it and the prisoners there is a road with a low wall built at its side, like the screen over which puppet players put up their puppet. Glaucon(G) : All that I see. S: See, again, then, men walking under cover of this low wall carrying past all sorts of things, copies of men and animals, in stone or wood and other materials; some of them may be talking and others not. G: This is a strange sort of comparison and these are strange prisoners. S: They are like ourselves. They see nothing but their own shadows, or one another‘s, which the fire throws on the wall of the cave. And so too with the things carried past. If they were able to talk to one another, wouldn‘t they think that in naming the shadows they were naming the things that went by? And if their prison sent back an echo whenever one of those who went by said a word, what could they do but take it for the voice of the shadow? G: By Zeus, they would. S: The only real things for them would be the shadows of the puppets. G: Certainly. S: Now see how it will be if something frees them from their chains: When one is freed and forced to get on his feet and turn his head and walk and look towards the light – and all this hurts, and because the light is too bright, he isn‘t able to see the things whose shadows he saw before – what will he answer, if someone says that all he has seen till now, was false and a trick, but that now he sees more truly? And if someone points out to him the things going by and asks him to name them, won‘t he be at a loss? And won?t he take the shadows he saw before as more real than these things? G: Much more real. S: And if he were forced to look straight at the light itself, wouldn‘t he start back with pained eyes? And if someone pulled him up the rough and hard ascent and forced him out into the light of the sun, wouldn‘t he be angry? And wouldn‘t his eyes be too full of light to make out even one of the things we say are real. G: Yes, that would be so at first. S: He would need to get used to the light before he could see things up there. At first he would see shadows best, and after that reflections in still water of men and other things, and only
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later these things themselves. Then he would be ready to look at the moon and stars, and would see the sky by night better than the sun and the sun‘s light by day. So, at last, I take it, he‘d be able to look upon the sun itself, and see it not through seemings and images of itself in water and away from its true place, but in its own field and as it truly is. G: So. S: And with that he will discover that it is the sun which gives the seasons and the years, and is the chief in the field of the things which are seen, and in some way the cause even of all the things he had been seeing before. If he now went back in his mind to where he was living before, and what his brother slaves took to be wisdom there, wouldn‘t he be happy at the change and pity them? G: Certainly, he would. S：And if their way was to reward those who were quickest to make out the shadows as they went by and to note in memory which came before which as a rule, and which together, would he care very much about such rewards? And, if he were to go down again out of the sunlight into his old places, would not his eyes get suddenly full of the dark? And if there were to be a competition then with the prisoners who had never moved out and he had to do his best in judging the shadows before his eyes got used to the dark – which needs more than a minute – wouldn‘t he be laughed at? Wouldn‘t they say he had come back from his time on high with his eyes in very bad condition so that there was no point in going up there? And if they were able to get their hands on the man who attempted to take their chains off and guide them up, wouldn‘t they put him to death? G: They certainly would. S: Take this comparison, dear Glaucon, with all we have said before. The world seen through the eyes, that is the prison house; the light of the fire is like the power of the sun; and if you see the way out and that looking upon things of the upper world as the going up of the soul to the field of true thought, you will have my hopes or beliefs about it and they are what you desired – though only God knows if they are right. Be that as it may, what seems clear to me is that in the field of deep knowledge the last thing to be seen, and hardly seen, is the idea of the good. When that is seen, our decision has to be that it is truly the cause, for all things, of all that is beautiful and right. In the world that is to be seen, it gives birth to light and to the lord of light, but in the field of thought it is itself the master cause of reason and all that is true; and anyone who is to act wisely in private or public must have seen this. G: I am with you – as far as I am able. S: It is not strange that those who have been so high are not willing to take up again the everyday business of men. Their souls are ever for turning again to that higher world. Nor again, is it surprising if a man, coming back from such godlike visions to the evil condition of men, seems a poor and foolish thing in his behavior; if before his eyes have got used to the dark again he is forced to go to law, for example, and fight about the shadows of justice or the images which make them, or argue about those images in the minds of men who have never seen justice itself. G: That isn‘t strange at all. S: Anyone with sense would keep in mind that there are two ways in which the eyes may be troubled: when they change over from the light to the dark, and from the dark to the light. He‘d believe that the same thing takes place with the soul, and he wouldn‘t be overquick to laugh at a soul unable to see something, but would be careful to note if it were coming from a brighter light into the dark or were going from the deeper dark of little knowledge into daylight and if its eyes
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were unclear because the light was overstrong. G: A very just observation. S: If so, education is not truly what some of its professors say it is. They say they are able to put knowledge into a soul which hasn‘t got it – as if they were putting sight into blind eyes. G: They do say so. S: But our argument points to this: the natural power to learn lives in the soul and is like an eye which might not be turned from the dark to the light without a turning round of the whole body. The instrument of knowledge has to be turned round and with the whole soul, from the things of becoming to the things of being, till the soul is able, by degrees, to support the light of true being and can look at the brightest. And this, we say, is the good? G: We do. S: Of this very process, then, there might be an art, the art of turning the soul round most quickly, and with the most effect. It would not be an art of producing a power of seeing in the soul, for it has that already – though it has been looking in the wrong direction. It would be an art of turning the soul in the right direction. G: That seems probable. S: The other qualities of the soul do seem like those of the body, for even when they are not present from birth, they may be formed in it by training and use. But the quality of reason and thought, it seems, is a much more godlike thing whose power never goes away, but as it is turned in one direction or another, becomes useful and able to do good, or useless and able only to damage. Haven‘t you noted, in those who are commonly said to be bad but sharp men, how quick their little souls are to see what is to their interest? It is clear they can see well enough. Only, the sharper their sight is, the worse are the things they do. G: Quite true. S: If from the earliest days this part of such a soul had been freed from the leadlike weights fixed to it at birth by the pleasures of taste and such, that now turn the soul‘s vision downwards; if, I say, the soul had been turned instead towards the things that are true and good, the same power in these same men would have been as quick to see the higher things as it is in seeing the low things it looks for now. G: Probably. S: And here is another thing which is probable, or, more truly, a necessary outcome of what we have said: those who are without education and true knowledge will never be able rulers of the state. And the same is true of those who never make an end of their education: the first because they have no one fixed purpose to give direction to all their acts, public and private; the others because they will not act at all, if they are not forced to, but believe they have been already transported to the Happy Isle. So we who are designing this state will have to face these naturally best minds to get what we have said is the greatest knowledge of all, to go on up till they see the good and when they have seen enough, we will not let them do as they do now. G: What is that? S: They may not keep to themselves up there, but have to go down again among those prisoners and take part in their work and rewards, whatever these may be. G: Then are we to wrong them by forcing them into a worse way of living when a better one is within their power? S: Are you keeping in mind, my friend, that this law of ours is not to make any one group in
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the state specially happy, but the state itself? Everyone is to give to all the others whatever he is able to produce for the society. For it made these men so, not to please themselves but, to unite the commonwealth. G: I see. I was overlooking that. S: But note, Glaucon, there will be no wrong done to the philosophers in this. We have just arguments to give them when we force them to become guardians. We will say to them, “It is natural that in other states men of your quality do not take part in the common work. For in these states such men come into being of their own sweet will and without the will of the government. Teachers of themselves, they have no cause to feel in debt to the state for an education they were never given. But you we begot to be rulers of yourselves and of the state. You have had a better and more complete education than any of the others; so down you go into the cave with the rest to get used to seeing in the dark. For then you will see far better than they do what these images are, and what they are of, for you have seen what the beautiful, the just and the good truly are.” So our state will be ruled by minds which are awake, and not as now by men in a dream fighting with one another over shadows and for the power and office which in their eyes are the great good. Truly that state is best and most quietly ruled where the rulers have least desire to be such, and the state with the opposite sort of rulers is the worst. And will you name any other sort of man than a philosopher who looks down on political office? G: By Zeus, no. S: And now let us see how this sort of ruler is to be produced, and what sort of work will turn the mind from that which changes to that which is, turn it round from a day little better than night to the true daylight in the ascent we say is true philosophy. G: Certainly. S: Keep in mind that our guardians have to be ready to take command in war. There were two parts in our education. Gymnastic had to do with the growth and decay of the body and so with coming to be and passing away. And that is not the sort of knowledge we are after. But what do you say of music which was, in a way, the other part? G: Music was a parallel to gymnastic and trained the guardians through forming their ways of living, giving them harmony and rhythm, but no science. There was nothing leading to the sort of good you are looking for now. S: Your memory is right. There was nothing in music of that sort. But what branch of knowledge is there, dear Glaucon, of the sort we desire? For all the useful arts in our opinion are low. G: Undoubtedly. But if music and gymnastic are out, and the arts are as well, what have we? S: We will have to take something which is not special but has to do with everything. Something which all arts and sciences and all forms of thought use. Something which everyone has to have among the first steps of his education. G: And what may that be? S: The simple business of knowing about one and two and three; in a word, number and arithmetic. Don‘t all the arts and sciences make use of them? Is not this the sort of science we are looking for, which naturally takes us on into thought? But it has never been rightly used. Its true value is its attraction of thought towards being. G: Please make that clearer.
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S: Some accounts of things which the senses give us do not make us think, for the senses seem good enough judges of them; but others do, because sense experience gives us nothing we may put any faith in. G: Clearly, what you have in mind is things seen at a distance or in paintings which trick the eye. S: No, that is not my point at all. G: Then what is it? S: The experiences which don‘t make us think are those in which the senses don‘t give opposite views. In those that do, I say, the sense, whatever the distance, no more gives us one thing than its opposite. An example will make this clearer: here are three fingers – the little finger, the second finger, and the middle finger. G: That is so. S: Every one of these seems equally to be a finger. Being seen as in the middle or that at one side does not change that at all. Black or white, thick or thin, a finger is a finger all the same. For all these changes, the soul, in most men, is not forced to put any question like, ―What, then, is a finger?‖ For in seeing it, we are not at any point suddenly made to see that the finger is not a finger. G: Certainly not. S: Such an experience does not naturally awake thought. But is this equally true of this point: are the fingers great or small? Will seeing answer that? And is that in no way changed by the fact that one of the fingers is in the middle and the others at the sides? And does touch, by itself, give us a good enough account of the qualities: thickness and thinness, softness and hardness? And so with the other senses. Do they give us good enough accounts of such things? No, the soul needs something with which to judge them. And this is the knowledge of numbers. It is needed in the army, and a philosopher has to have it because he has to go up from out of the sea of becoming and take a grip on being or he will never use his reason rightly in arithmetic. G: It is so. S: So it is right. Glaucon, for this branch of learning to be ordered by law for those who are to take part in the highest work of the state. And they are to go into it till by the help of thought itself they come to see what numbers are. They are not to use it as the traders and the men in the market do, but for war and for the purpose of turning the soul itself away from becoming to being and the true. G: Well said. They are working with units which are only to be taken up by thought and in no other way. S: Have you not noted how those who are naturally able at this science are generally quick in all others, and how men of slow minds, if they get nothing more from it, become sharper than they were before. G: That is so. S: And you will not readily name sciences which are more trouble to learn or to go on with than this. So for all these reasons let us keep this science in view and use it in the education of the naturally best minds. G: I am with you. S: With that point fixed, let us go on to the science which comes after this. G: What is that? Is it geometry?
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S: Yes. G: So much of it as is useful in war is certainly in place here. For an officer who was good at geometry would be very different from one who was not. S: But still, a very little geometry would be enough for that. What we have to see is if the greater and harder part of it farther on has a tendency to help us to keep in view the idea of the good. But geometry itself is flatly against the language the experts in it use. G: In what way? S: They have no other way of talking than as if they were doing something with their hands and as if all their words had acts in view. For all their talk is of squaring or of putting one thing on another or addition and the like. But in fact this science has nothing but knowledge itself in view – knowledge of that which always is and not of something which at one time comes into existence and then passes away. G: That we may agree about, for the knowledge of geometry is of what is always so. S: Then, my good friend, it will attract the soul towards the true, and will produce the philosophic way of thought, giving the powers which are now wrongly turned downward a direction upward. G: Nothing is more certain. S: Let us put this down as a second branch of knowledge for the men of your beautiful republic. And will astronomy be a third, or do you say ―No‖? G: I am certainly with you, for quickness in noting the times of the year and the round of the months and years is very useful, not only in farming and at sea but still more in the military art. S: I am amused by the reason you give. You seem to fear that the mass of men may take you to be putting useless sciences forward. It is in fact very hard to see how in every soul there is an instrument of knowledge which may be cleared and put in order by such sciences when everyday business has broken and blinded it. And this instrument is of more value than ten thousand eyes, for by it only do we see what is true. Those who believe this with you will be very pleased with what we say. But those who have never had any experience of the sort will take us to be talking complete nonsense. For they don‘t see any profit to be got from such sciences. Make up your mind then, right away, which of them you are talking to. G: I see now I am wrong; and in place of that common sort of praise for astronomy, Socrates, let me say this about it from your point of view. It will be clear to everyone that astronomy makes the soul look upward and takes it up from things here to higher things. S: It may be clear to everyone but me, for that‘s not my opinion. G: Well, what is your opinion then? S: I would say that the astronomy men offer us as a sort of philosophy today turns the mind‘s eye very much downward. G: How so? S: You seem to me to have a very wide view of this knowledge of higher things. For to you, it seems, a man with his head back looking up at ornaments on the ceiling would be using his higher reason and not his eyes. Maybe you are right and I am oversimple. But to me no true science which doesn‘t turn us toward being and the unseen makes the soul look upward. If anyone attempts to learn through the senses – whether by gaping at the sky or blinking at the ground – I would never say he was truly learning, for nothing of that sort is what science has to do with. His soul is looking down, not up – however much you stretch him on his back on the earth or in the
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sea! G: It was coming to me! But what is the right way of teaching astronomy? S: Like this: These ornaments of the sky are doubtless the most completely ordered of all visible things but as such they are far short of what is true – their true motions, namely, their true number and forms in relation to one another. Men may get at these things by reasoning and the work of thought but not by sight. Or have you a different opinion? G: Not at all. But you are giving men a thousand times as much work as our present astronomers have in mind. S: Yes, and it will be the same with the other sciences if we are to be any use as lawmakers. In all of them, when we have gone far enough to see their connections and relations, and their togethernesses, then all this work will point to our desired end, and the work itself will not have been wasted. But if we do not get so far it will be no use at all. G: it seems to me as well; but, Socrates, this is very great stretch of work you are talking of. S: Which is? This opening part or what? Don‘t you see that this is only the part that comes before the law itself, that true music which we have to learn? You certainly don‘t take the experts in these sciences to be good at discussion and dialectic? G: No, by Zeus. At least only a few of them in my experience. S: Will men who are unable to give and audit a full account of what may be meant in a discussion ever know what we say must be known? G: ―No‖ is the answer to that as well. S: This then, at last, Glaucon, is the law itself, the true music played by dialectic. It is the work of thought but has its parallel in our power to see – which, in my comparison, came after a time to see living things, and then the stars, and at last the sun itself. So it is with dialectic: when a man – through thinking about what we mean, putting the records of the senses on one side – attempts to make his way into the very being of each thing and keeps on till by thought itself he takes in what the good is itself, he comes to the limit of the world of thought, as the other in our parallel came to the end of what may be seen. G: Certainly. S: And this movement of thought you will name ―dialectic‖. G: I will. … (Source: From The Republic by I. A. Richards, 段至誠譯， 《理想國》英漢對(duì)照基本英語譯本, 中國對(duì)外翻譯出版公司, 2006) NOTES TO THE TEXT 1. Language points: This version is founded on basic English which is only composed of 850 words. Students can then pay more attention to the ideas without worrying about the difficult words. However, students have to be ready for the linguistic challenge by a great number of prepositions and adverbs. 2. Plato (427-347 B.C.) As a son of a wealthy and noble family, he was preparing for a career in politics when the trial and execution of Socrates made him abandon his political career and turned to philosophy, opened a school known as the Academy, the first university in the history of the West. He was a
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writer as well as a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. In all his works, the Allegory of the Cave is regarded as the most famous passage, which was from his masterpiece, The Republic. 3. Socrates ( 470/469 – 399 BC) A classical Greek philosopher was credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, who became known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon. Plato‘s dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates' life and philosophy. 4. Glaucon ( 445 BC – 4th century BC) He was the older brother of Plato, and like his brother was amongst the inner circle of Socrates‘ young affluent students. He is primarily known as a major conversant with Socrates in the Republic, and the interlocutor during the Allegory of the Cave. COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS 1. How was ―the Good‖ defined according to the text? 2. What must a person do in order to see things as they really are? 3. How does Plato believe we come to know things? 4. Why is the knowledge of numbers important for educating a guardian? QESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND WRITING 1. 2. 3. 4. How can the soul be guided? How do you understand these words like ―the chains‖, ―the prisoners‖, ―the shadow‖ in the text? What must a person do in order to see things as they really are? What is the role of philosophy?
VOCABULARY AND STRUCTURE Directions: Complete the sentences with the one that best fits the blank from the four choices marked A, B, C, and D. 1. I found it hard to ________ what kind of landscape those statistics might have shaped, until I opened the Survey map to find half of it colored green with a great blue stain in the centre. A. picture B. paint C. picturesque D. draw 2. The Pakistan camp were clearly peeved, and united in their conviction that they ________, a conclusion based on a deep and enduring suspicion of their opponents' stance. A. were wrong B. had been wronged C. had been wrong D. has been wronging 3. And their targets were supporters of the African National Congress, which has vowed to topple Ciskei's military leader — denouncing him as a ________ of white South Africa. A. pupil B. puppet C. person D. puma 4. See, again, then, men ________ under cover of this low wall ________ all sorts of things, copies of men and animals, in stone or wood and other materials.
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A. walking … carrying past B. walk … carrying past C. walk … carrying under D. walking … carrying under If someone points out to him the things going by and asks him to name them, won‘t he be ________ ? A. at loss B. for loss C. at a loss D. in a loss And wouldn‘t his eyes be too full of light to ________ even one of the things we say are real. A. make out B. make up
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C. make for D. make do 7. Wouldn‘t they say he had come back from his time ________ with his eyes in very bad condition so that there was no point in going up there? A. in high B. off high C. at high D. on high 8. Then Alexander became king, with no living heir and married his French lover, lusting after her, proclaiming he would ________ an heir. A. become B. behave C. beget D. beg 9. Teachers of themselves, they have no cause to feel ________ the state for an education they were never given. A. at debt to B. in debt to C. on debt for D. into debt to 10. The instrument of knowledge has to be turned round and with the whole soul, from the things of becoming to the things of being, till the soul is able, ________, to support the light of true being and can look at the brightest. A. by degrees B. by degree C. in degrees D. in degree READING Directions: Put the listed sentences into the numbered places to make the cohesive paragraphs. So it will be enough, maybe, to give the name reason to the first and highest division, to the second, understanding, to the third, belief, and to the fourth, picturing. And the last two together we will name opinion, and 1）________. Opinion has to do with becoming and knowledge with true being. And we may put the relation between them like this: as being is to becoming, 2) ________; and as knowledge is to opinion, so reason is to belief, and 3) ________. But the relations between what these have to do with and the division of them separately into two parts – that which opinion is of namely, and that which knowledge is of – let us put that on one side, Glaucon, or 4) ________. A. the first two together will be knowledge B. so knowledge is to opinion C. understanding to picturing D. it will take us into a discussion far longer than that we have got through TRANSLATION
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Directions: Find the following sentences in the text and translate them into Chinese. 1. The world seen through the eyes, that is the prison house; the light of the fire is like the power of the sun; and if you see the way out and that looking upon things of the upper world as the going up of the soul to the field of true thought, you will have my hopes or beliefs about it and they are what you desired – though only God knows if they are right. Be that as it may, what seems clear to me is that in the field of deep knowledge the last thing to be seen, and hardly seen, is the idea of the good. When that is seen, our decision has to be that it is truly the cause, for all things, of all that is beautiful and right. In the world that is to be seen, it gives birth to light and to the lord of light, but in the field of thought it is itself the master cause of reason and all that is true; and anyone who is to act wisely in private or public must have seen this. ―It is natural that in other states men of your quality do not take part in the common work. For in these states such men come into being of their own sweet will and without the will of the government. Teachers of themselves, they have no cause to feel in debt to the state for an education they were never given. But you we begot to be rulers of yourselves and of the state. You have had a better and more complete education than any of the others; so down you go into the cave with the rest to get used to seeing in the dark. For then you will see far better than they do what these images are, and what they are of, for you have seen what the beautiful, the just and the good truly are.‖ So our state will be ruled by minds which are awake, and not as now by men in a dream fighting with one another over shadows and for the power and office which in their eyes are the great good. Truly that state is best and most quietly ruled where the rulers have least desire to be such, and the state with the opposite sort of rulers is the worst. And will you name any other sort of man than a philosopher who looks down on political office?
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SUGGESTED READING 1. 2. 3. （美）貝蒂（Beaty, J. L.）, (美) 約翰遜（Johnson, O.A.）,（美）賴斯博德（Reisbord. J.）. 西方文明遺產(chǎn)（上）. 英文影印版. 北京：北京大學(xué)出版社, 2004. （美） 科拉克 （Kolak, D.） 編. 哲學(xué)經(jīng)典選讀. 英文影印版. 北京： 北京大學(xué)出版社, 2005. 朱剛編. 西方思想經(jīng)典閱讀. 上海：上海外語教育出版社, 2008.
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