So,how do you leave the cave for good? Have YOU left the cave? Maybe it's an oxymoron to answer that while sitting in front of a screen. I considered my ego-death to be the way out but it felt more like a pick your own reality thing rather than getting rid of it. Isn't the very idea of it just another one of those shadows? Didn't really think the thread through,just looking for company i guess.
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The only way to truly leave the cave is dying. You can have a peek out of the cave from time to time but you always go back while you alive.
That's a lot of layers. First post, worst post.
Just go outside, do things you think are good, realize you need shelter from the cold of the night, go back home, report on basket weaving forums what you did outside, get laughed at, go outside the next day anyway.
Play with the size of the cave: For some people it's their laptop, for others their living room, for others the whole Earth is a cave and they want to go to Mars. But a house can be seen as the modern most analogous thing to a cave.
Arguably, a womb can be Plato's cave, and in that case, you're free already!
anon... all you've done is taken the allegory literally and reinterpreted it. you actually don't seem to understand it. LOL, you fricking idiot.
You are working outside of the reasonable interpretation of the character of the people in the cave. If you assert Plato here wrote a metaphysical allegory, then you must establish where they died and how they died, then also explain in reasonable terms how the enlightened dead returned to enlighten the ‘living’ people inside the cave.
Yes, this. There might be the possibility of people who leave the cave and don't return, and perhaps those might be some of the Pre-Socratics, who are usually lss concerned with politics. Socrates' disagreements and agreements with them, depending, can still be preserved by leaving it unknown whether they're out there looking at water reflections, things roaming the earth, or the sky.
>I considered my ego-death to be the way out
How? Psychedelics? What do you mean by ego-death? You can't not have an ego and function in society. Unless you live in the mountains in India or something. Do you mean like a suppression of your ego or something? Or a reduction maybe. Reminds me of an old joke by Eckhart Tolle:
>Sometimes when you go to an airport they ask you what you do.
>I don't - and I advise you don't either - say: "I have no conceptual identity."
>They probably won't let you in.
Yeah,psyches. I'm not functioning in "society" obviously. Since i didn't go full hermit though and tried to trace over my old life i'm more of a madman than a sage i guess. No practices just old habits.
moron thread.
>Yeah maaaan... like smoke weed amd we're all stardust maaan...
>I totally left the cave bro...
You sound like a wallguy to me. It's all coo though just making conversation.
Frick plato
My personal opinion, so as usual you can take it with a grain of salt, is that the allegory was likely considerably more powerful when it was detailed by Plato, not for any reason intrinsic to Plato per se but rather due to the time period. In the ancient world there really was no media and schooling was generally nothing like it is today in terms of scope. The average person was probably literally living in a cave moreso than we are today. The practice of philosophy was a way for people to leave the cave in a way. In the current times we live in the average person is force-fed material from K-12 and has access to constant media, and there is an endless vomiting of people's shit all over social media. If you made an argument to me right now that entering the cave to practice philosophy and leaving the constant barrage of nonsense behind IS the modern day equivalent of the ancients leaving the cave to practice philosophy I would be inclined to agree with you. The notion also reminds me of some of the dialogue in Zarathustra and perhaps just staying in your own head for a bit is the cave and you can seemingly emerge from it as you choose. I would say once you perform the ritual either way you possess the ability to perform it again if you so desire though.
Plato was not a liberal atheist. He believed in a higher realm... To leave the cave was to "leave" the material realm, the realm of the senses and reach the realm of forms.
Socrates/Glaucon dichotomy. Either the other prisoners will want to kill the returned one or the returned one will be unhappy at having to return to the cave. I don't remember the process they abstracted for the total exit of the cave other than it involved math. My comment was not intended to sway someone towards anything but may be viewed better through the dichotomy listed. If that is your pursuit then by all means continue it, just be aware of that aspect of the dialog.
This. Plato was not some sort of ancient Jordan Petersen or Sam Harris type thinker rooted in a pragmatic materialistic paradigm. He was first and foremost a mystic. "Philosopher" was a newly coined word that basically replaced the ancient concept of the sage. He was an initiate of the Eleusinian mystery and its obvious the cave is an allegory of the world as a form of prison and the goal of freeing ourselves from it through gnosis and personal spiritual metacognition. Plato knew he was an immortal being experiencing a temporary carnal physicality and through awareness of such truth he could leave the cave and return to Reality.
The cave is much stronger today because the puppeteers are far more powerful and pervasive. If anything, we're in a cave below the cave.
Black person what is the cave
The cave is this thread.
Inside are a bunch of morons staring at shadows on the wall arguing over the meaning of those shadows.
The morons are not locked up. They are not trapped. They could leave at any time. But they're too moronic and just stare at the shadows because they have nothing better to do.
I close IQfy.
I have escaped the cave.
It's an analogy. Try not to take analogies so seriously. Socrates implicitly recommends that as he's outlining the analogy of the divided line.
Think for yourself
So, what you're saying is that I'm supposed to think for myself by taking somebody else's thoughts at face value. Okay. That seems wise.
Look at what people are saying firstly. Secondly, know them for a bit until you start being an essentialist about what they’re saying. You’ve absolutely lost the plot my brother. We can’t even agree about what we are talking about. We are talking about Plato’s cave.
Explain your point I don’t get it.
Since you replied to both of my posts, I'll answer them both. The cave, being an analogy, is an image. Go back to the divided line (which itself is an image, a mathematical one sure, but an image nonetheless) and see what Socrates thinks about images. There's an infinite amount of layers to unpack here regarding images, and there will never be one definitive interpretation of the cave. But beyond the infinite layers of images, the highest truth is to be found in what makes the cave, or anything, really, intelligible at all, which is the mysterious form of the Good. How many layers are you willing to peel for a chance to "find the pattern", skip to the end, and figure out what it is?
We all have an imagination and can see images in our minds eye, we can agree on that ontology. So you’re talking about inquiry itself that the cave is a metaphor to inspire us to look for patterns in behavior? Is your point that simple? Or is our ontology too different.
Well put anon
Words describe images, images describe the Truth. Just like words can never describe the nuances of an image, images can never describe the nuances of the Truth. You must experience the Truth to fully understand it, just like you must see this image to truly comprehend what im talking about if I was to describe it
Is Hegel‘s Absolute Idea synonymous with leaving the cave? If so, I‘d say read Hegel and see what he has to say (good luck).
The cave was basically the first version of the Matrix (1999).
Remember that when you leave the cave you get blinded by the light, so when you go back to tell people in the cave, they will think you are a blind moron and will think it's better that they stay in the cave because they don't want to become "moronic" like you by leaving. I think after leaving the cave you need time to acclimate and strategize in order to communicate to those who are still in the cave.
I like the part about seeing people talking about shadows as if they have knowledge of the object.
>Does this guy really know about politics? or is he speaking of shadows and reflections? Let's probe him a little to see what he "knows"
>I think after leaving the cave you need time to acclimate and strategize in order to communicate to those who are still in the cave.
The other possibility, that I never see anyone grapple with, is that the man who leaves joins the men who project shadows. An objection to that is that the philosopher wouldn't do such a thing as come back down and stir up more falsehoods, but an objection to THAT is that it's exactly what Socrates legislates earlier in the Republic with the medicinal and noble lies. The shadow projectors aren't restrained, after all, it's unlikely they didn't exit the cave themselves, and it's impossible that they never noticed an exit at all.
>joins the men who project shadows
That is an interesting thought to grapple with.
But if they (projectors) left the cave in pursuit of truth, wouldn't they find their own actions of projecting falsehoods to be reprehensible?
Or is it that they are evil and want to withhold truth from the population for some reason.
>The shadow projectors aren't restrained, after all, it's unlikely they didn't exit the cave themselves, and it's impossible that they never noticed an exit at all.
Maybe it's just not a perfect metaphor. After all, couldn't the unrestrained projectors just attack anyone they see going towards the exit? You have provoked me to ponder this further. Maybe its true that by leaving the cave you get to interact with the people who know the truth but want to keep it hidden. You get to challenge them but they want you dead.
>But if they (projectors) left the cave in pursuit of truth, wouldn't they find their own actions of projecting falsehoods to be reprehensible?
No, they hate the "true lie", but medicinal and noble lies aren't innately bad. Recall that those lies are taught so that the guardians won't prey on the money-makers. Presumably, if someone doesn't want to think about or investigate the truth, it's hard to compel them, so you let them be with whatever image they're satisfied with.
>Or is it that they are evil and want to withhold truth from the population for some reason.
No, the cave is civic life (the only shadow explicitly mentioned is Justice, so the dwellers have opinions about things like Justice without knowing what it reallly is), and the philosopher going back in is the analogue to the philosopher being made to rule, even though he doesn't want to. In the discussions of education from beginning to end, the standard is whether the citizens are capable of the several tiers for sorting out the artisans, auxiliaries, and guardians. You can't banish someone for being bad at math if they can work with their hands, but you also can't expect much understanding of the truth from someone only goid at working with their hands.
>Maybe it's just not a perfect metaphor. After all, couldn't the unrestrained projectors just attack anyone they see going towards the exit?
I don't think so, between Socrates making a strong point about other people being responsible for the shadows, the discussion of the founders needing lies to make the city stable and deal with natural differences, and the long critiques of poetry, I think the suggestion is that the poets are chief among the projectors, but also that they do have wisdom beyond the cave, and need to use falsehoods to stabilize the Greeks. Hesiod's Theogony starts with the Muses telling him that they "tell lies like the truth", and that they know when to. There's a passage at 518a-b where a man with intelligence is described knowing the difference between blindness from going from darkness to light, and vice-versa, and the first would be considered by this man happy, and the second he would pity, but he would also laugh at both of them. That seems like a description of the projectors, who know both experiences.
>The shadow projectors aren't restrained, after all, it's unlikely they didn't exit the cave themselves, and it's impossible that they never noticed an exit at all.
Bullshit. Anybody with a knack for sophistry can play with fire without understanding what they're playing with. It happens all the time with any society's "puppeteers." If you've ever met a verbalcel, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Again, noble and medicinal lies are acceptable for philosophers to use, this idea that philosophers will only talk about the truth with hostile randos is silly. Did you just forget that the Republic teaches that philospher-founders need to banish everyone older than ten and lie to the remainder in order to get their education to work?
The fact that his two political dialogues are his two longest works speaks against this. And the Mysteries aren't anything special to Plato, his Seventh Letter to Dion's associates blames Dion's death on grounding his friendships in things like the Mysteries, instead of philosophy (333e). The cave isn't (simply) the material world, *justice* is one of the things there are explicitly said to be shadows of (517d-e). He was much more open to an afterlife of nothingness than you're acknowledging (Apology 40c-e, Phaedo 91b). The Phaedo itself, the dialogue that most denigrates the body, opens with Socrates spending time with *his wife and newborn infant*.
Why are you assuming that the shadow reflectors in the analogy are philosophers themselves? That's totally baseless. They could be anybody.
I don't think they're only philosophers, I think the biggest suggestion is that they're the ancient poets like Homer and Hesiod (which is why books 2-3 and 10 are devoted to addressing them), but that they can be philosophers, moving images back and forth to dictate the dweller's beliefs has already been highlighted by the prior passages about medicinal and noble lies. If, in the analogy, the return of the philosopher to the cave corresponds to the philosopher in the city being made the king, is the philosopher as king spilling the beans about the noble lies? The answer suggested throughout the Republic is "no." There's no real possibility of world-wide, let alone city-wide, enlightenment, because people plainly have different natures that prevent them from understanding. The projectors aren't "anyones," they're whoever dictates the horizon everyone in the city operates within. Sometimes, as in Cratylus, the suggestion is they might be lawgivers. Lycurgus and Solon would presumably be included.
That the denigration of body isn't seriously meant. Socrates denigrates the body in a private conversation with a bunch of younger friends all having a meltdown over his death, and they're about to give up on philosophy over it. But Socrates, in his maturity, has spent a little over the last decade of his life producing three kids, and the youngest is still an infant. Phaedo observes that Plato was absent because, "he was sick, I think." If he's sick and not present, then he's at home caring for his body. The subsequent arguments for the deathlessness of the soul are fallacious, because death is already defined at the start (64c and 67d) as the separation of body and soul.
>I don't think they're only philosophers, I think the biggest suggestion is that they're the ancient poets like Homer and Hesiod
Where is the suggestion that they're philosophers? Isn't this a stretch? Couldn't they be just regular, run-of-the-mill sophists, or third-rate poets, rhetoricians, politicians, etc.?
>If, in the analogy, the return of the philosopher to the cave corresponds to the philosopher in the city being made the king, is the philosopher as king spilling the beans about the noble lies?
I might have totally missed this when I last read Republic, so the egg might be on my face, but is there any indication that the cave is meant to apply to a specific city, or even the city-in-speech?
I'll have to address this bit by bit to build up the argument and lay cards on the table.
>Where is the suggestion that they're philosophers?
Strictly, there is none, but then, strictly, there's no explicit statement about who they are. So you have to start working with what we have in the cave image itself, as well as whatever relates in the Republic. Other people are explicitly the movers of the images, which to the thoughtful reader should raise the question, "who are they?" And that chained dwellers would be able to see the entrance from their position if their necks weren't restrained implies that the projectors are well aware of the entrance, since it's in view of them the whole time. Now, you could stop here and suggest that these projectors might see the entrance and choose not to go up, and I think that has to be a plausible possibility for some of them. But there has to be some holdout for the chance that some of them have exited the cave and returned. In fact, that seems to be guaranteed for some of them, since the artifacts and statues that they're moving around are modeled after things outside the cave, like animals. So that would seem to secure that some of them have come back down (otherwise you have a regress of "what did they base these artifacts and statues on?"). So within the image itself, characterizing the philosopher as one who exits and returns, that makes it plausible. But further, within the Republic itself, you have Socrates defending teaching medicinal and noble lies to the citizens. You also have him discuss philosophy in books 5-7 using images (Sun, Divided Line, Cave), and end with a myth (= image) defending the choice of the just/philosophical life. So if the projectors are projecting images that the dwellers come to accept about what's true (and these aren't just material things, Justice is listed as something there are shadows and phantoms of on the wall), and Socrates the philosopher speaks in images and defends teaching falsehoods elsewhere throughout the Republic, then it's highly plausible that philosophers are among the projectors.
>Isn't this a stretch?
Per above, I don't think so.
>Couldn't they be just regular, run-of-the-mill sophists, or third-rate poets, rhetoricians, politicians, etc.?
Sophists would be a good candidate for projectors who see the evidence but haven't exited, but by Socrates' insistence, just about everyone involved in political life is a sophist (492a-b). But otherwise, I would locate most of those listed as among the dwellers competing with each other over prizes. The projectors are responsible for putting forth the image of what Justice is, while the dwellers squabble over it, which sounds like Homer and Hesiod as the greatest poets. I'll use a concrete example: Alfred Rosenberg is a cave dweller relying on shadows Nietzsche projects. Or, most scientists are cave dwellers relying on what Descartes, Bacon, and Galileo have projected.
>But there has to be some holdout for the chance that some of them have exited the cave and returned. In fact, that seems to be guaranteed for some of them, since the artifacts and statues that they're moving around are modeled after things outside the cave, like animals. So that would seem to secure that some of them have come back down (otherwise you have a regress of "what did they base these artifacts and statues on?").
That is a very good point. Solid detail. But that is only proof of having spent at least a small amount of time outside the cave. Plato speaks of the philosopher's journey as a long journey of essentially understanding how everything relates to everything, like constructing an encyclopedia of forms, if you will. Just because you can parade a few of them (or, at least, a few distortions of them) from a small amount of time outside the cave doesn't make you a philosopher. In fact, that's all the progress towards the form of the Good that some people ever make, despite having some inclination for the task. They find a few idols and rest content in believing that they know the whole.
>So if the projectors are projecting images that the dwellers come to accept about what's true (and these aren't just material things, Justice is listed as something there are shadows and phantoms of on the wall), and Socrates the philosopher speaks in images and defends teaching falsehoods elsewhere throughout the Republic, then it's highly plausible that philosophers are among the projectors.
Even if there is no choice for the philosopher but to project images, due to the chance of being rejected, does the philosopher have an obligation to project a certain set of images? I find it difficult to believe that a philosopher with a taste for the beauty would indignify himself by presenting images that could be mistaken for a sophist's, or a person of even lower taste.
>Per above, I don't think so.
It's possible, but I don't think it's plausible. If the only difference between a sophist projecting images and a philosopher projecting images is a hidden biographical detail that serves no purpose in the final outcome (projecting images of a uniform kind), then, per the pragmatic maxim, is it even a ontologically real distinction?
Also, why are you slumming it out in this midwit Plato thread? Come check out my Statesman thread.
>But that is only proof of having spent at least a small amount of time outside the cave.
I don't think it evinces evidence any which way for how long they were out, just that some of them 100% had to be at the very least. But that still leaves room wide open for the possibility of philosophers being among them, and when applied at least to the Kallipolis, the philosophers are certainly among them, taking their place in the city as rulers who know that the noble lies are lies, and yet promoting them. In practice, I think this means getting "Socrates the moralist" who you see in Apology, Cleitophon, book 1 of the Republic, etc., promoting virtues that the city technically already accepts, but ultimately meaning something somehow different.
>Plato speaks of the philosopher's journey as a long journey of essentially understanding how everything relates to everything, like constructing an encyclopedia of forms, if you will. Just because you can parade a few of them (or, at least, a few distortions of them) from a small amount of time outside the cave doesn't make you a philosopher.
Certainly, but 1) the cave isn't a single generation, this seems to be a analogy of our situation just in general wherever we are, so what's decisive is that someone's left, seen what's outside, and comes back in having realized that presenting images is all that can be managed for most of the dwellers. The images might be different--Machiavelli's sly use of Moses as an example of a "prince" comes to mind--but the conclusion that the images are all most people can take seems to hold. And 2) there's nothing necessitating that the philosopher be comprehensive in the images they share as a projector. Related: A kind of noble lie appears in Laws 663d-e, where it's offered that the lawgiver's claim that the unjust life is more shameful and wicked might not be true, but if it isn't, it's a more profitable lie for the lawgiver to tell.
>Even if there is no choice for the philosopher but to project images, due to the chance of being rejected, does the philosopher have an obligation to project a certain set of images? I find it difficult to believe that a philosopher with a taste for the beauty would indignify himself by presenting images that could be mistaken for a sophist's, or a person of even lower taste.
Does Socrates use admittedly sophistical tricks pretty often? And if among those things the philosopher inquires about are the conditions that make his activity possible (the soul and the order and conditions of human communities), then wouldn't he both have some insight and have concern regarding what a political community can know or handle? And if that turns out to be "not much", won't he at the least teach things that are safe and do as little to make the community worse? Which might point to supporting what looks a little like conservatism or traditionalism with tweaks (they don't get rid of Homer, they just tweak a lot for their purposes).
>Does Socrates use admittedly sophistical tricks pretty often?
Should be "doesn't Socrates admittedly use" etc.
I could care less about your grammatical corrections.
>It's possible, but I don't think it's plausible. If the only difference between a sophist projecting images and a philosopher projecting images is a hidden biographical detail that serves no purpose in the final outcome (projecting images of a uniform kind), then, per the pragmatic maxim, is it even a ontologically real distinction?
That depends, Protagoras is taken far more seriously than Hippias--Plato takes it that Protagoras has seen something, but without full clarity, and Hippias is just really good at calling out the images that pass in front of him. But this obscures the point, which is that Socrates is perfectly happy to use sophisms, defend the use of lies, and use images and myths geared to his audience. If Socrates is an example of a philosopher, and he acts in a way that corresponds to how the projectors do, then he might sometimes be a projector. There's still room in the cave analogy for the images presented to sometimes be truer--a statue could be a more detailed likeness of something outside. After all, we never actually get the Good itself in the Republic, just something mediated by several images woven together, which might be a fine enough set of images to make some dwellers more open to being freed, while not making those who don't want to worse.
>Also, why are you slumming it out in this midwit Plato thread? Come check out my Statesman thread.
That's your thread? If you're the effortposter there, I like your posts, but it's awfully intimidating to talk a host of dialogues at once. The cave is so short, it's a lot less hassle to muster arguments about.
>If Socrates is an example of a philosopher, and he acts in a way that corresponds to how the projectors do, then he might sometimes be a projector.
Socrates refrains from speaking about the good in Republic, and in Philebus, he admits of two kinds of wisdom: the best is knowledge of the one and the many, and the second best is one of intellectual humility. What kind of wisdom is Socrates famous for professing according to the oracle? The second best. Now, what kind of wisdom defines the philosopher? That's a good question.
>That's your thread? If you're the effortposter there, I like your posts, but it's awfully intimidating to talk a host of dialogues at once. The cave is so short, it's a lot less hassle to muster arguments about.
No worries. I just like having food for thought and additional eyes on my work. I'm not always looking for something that raises up to the level of an argument.
>The Phaedo itself, the dialogue that most denigrates the body, opens with Socrates spending time with *his wife and newborn infant*.
What do you think this means?
Is this the Straussian reading of Plato that people often say?
This is such a weird thing to believe.
This is any reading that pays attention to dramatic cues ir shufts in the argument. Do you deny that the Kallipolis requires banishing everyone over 10 and teaching the remainder noble lies? If you admit that it occurs, and with Socrates' sanction, then why deny that the projectors could be people who left the cave and returned down to legislate? Does Socrates not suggest how tense the relationship between the philosopher and city is at 496d? Does he not say that the philosopher owes nothing to most cities, with the exception of the Kallipolis, at 520a-b? Does Socrates not effectively call the city the biggest sophist at 492a-b?
For the rest, nothing's stopping you from looking up the passages, and seeing exactly what I said borne out. And to add, Symposium is playing on the episode of Alcibiades blaspheming the Mysteries before the Sicilian expedition; both Phaedrus and Eryximachus were exiled for their involvement. And let's not forget that the Mysteries were just as prone to being spoiled by political maneuvering, since ALCIBIADES was made a processional leader after Athens made up with him.
Like Plato you fail to address how we got tied up in a cave in the first place. It's not obvious at all. Are we born ignorant? Are we fallen? Is it language? Conditioning? A learning school? A prison planet? What reason do we have to believe that there's an experience to be head beyond our current experience?
Instead you're all about escaping. Escaping what? The wage cage? The need to eat, shit and frick? Your unpleasant thoughts and emotions?
Escaping to where? To a place where you're without physical need and feel joy all the time for an eternity? Do you really want what you think you want?
Plato might've been a NEET /misc/tard and /x/schizo but here we are discussing his brainfart.
I brought up the cave to my brother who doesn't into philosophy and he said "maybe we are always leaving the cave, and once we think we left, we find a new cave to leave"
True. The red pill / ego death / awakening crowd pretends that enlightenment is a once in a lifetime event but instead we're always in a process of realization.
Yeah, but he thinks that advancements in science can keep leading us out of caves, but they could very well be the ones projecting shadows, unwittingly, even, if it may be.
Pretty reasonable thought given the history of science. Stuff like aether, phlogiston, caloric, all taken seriously before being replaced totally.
Yea but isn't the cave more a personal experience of an individual? Not, instead, as if we all emerge from the cave collectively at different periods of advancements
Probably but it's not a bad thought that anon's bro had. A lot of history is everyone at some point going "we got this shit now" before being shown up.
1. The cave and the whole problem is just a projection,so even discussing it is pointless
2.The caves creates the shadowwatchers and the whole thing is its lifecycle.
>What reason do we have
Tangible? I've seen it. Yeah,drugs lmao. Actual? Hope for something better.
Yes to the all the rest.
"Next, then," I said, "make an image of our nature in its education and want of education, likening it to a condition of the following kind. See human beings as though they were in an underground cave-like dwelling with its entrance, a long one, open to the light across the whole width of the cave. They are in it from childhood with their legs and necks in bonds so that they are fixed, seeing only in front of them, unable because of the bond to turn their heads all the way around."
1) The projectors are responsible for our being bound, since we're bound in order to see their shadows (about things like Justice).
2) We're born ignorant.
3) We're not fallen, but political life is the solution to our otherwise fundamental neediness and vulnerability, which points to how we politically organize ourselves to solve for neediness, which points to problems of disagreement over how to do so.
4) Language is partly responsible, yes, Plato takes that up in the Cratylus.
5) It is conditioning, though, more precisely, it's operating within someone else's own horizons of thought. An exquisite: we talk of "objectivity" and "subjectivity" differently than the medievals used those words, and we're doing so operating under Descartes' uses of those words. So, we in effect think according to Descartes' premises, biases, prejudices, etc. when we speak that way, without realizing.
6) It's not a specific place or institution, it's what your family raised you to value, what your neighbors say, what your friends and teachers say, what you hear expressed in television, film, music, novels, etc. It's not all supposed to be insidious and bad, Plato doesn't suggest at all that the philosopher will persuade everyone or even one person when they go back down, and the Best City is ALSO a cave, wherein one grows up taught lies about metal souls, and may come eventually to realize that's not true, but understand why it's being promoted. Some caves might be awful top to bottom, but not every case.
7) The biggest signs that there's something "else" to learn or discover are a) variability in customs between peoples, suggesting custom might contain error or falsehoods, b) variability in opinions, usually about things like Justice, Beauty, the Good, c) most people don't investigate any of it but accept by authority or passions, d) there are some things that hold regardless of variation in customs and opinions, like all living beings needing nutrition to live, or humans requiring food, drink, and sleep.
I very much appreciate that line of reasoning however maybe being restrained by such concerns is also a part of it.
Problems of a thought experiment I guess
We got I to the cave due to ignorance and fear of the unknowns outside the cave. That's why we chase away the Enlightened Ones when they come back to the cave to tell us of the lies they saw beyond.
The only way to escape the cave is to become le intellectuale, consuming knowledge and discovering the philosophical truths of ourselves and the world as we project it.
>Yet to achieve liberation from the unenlightened state requires
extraordinarily sustained intellectual and moral effort, so that the intellect—considered by Plato the highest part of the soul—can rise above the merely sensible and physical to reattain the lost knowledge of the Ideas. In some dialogues (such as the Republic), Plato emphasized the power of dialectic, or rigorously self-critical logic, to accomplish this aim, while elsewhere (such as in the Symposium and the Seventh Letter), he spoke more of a spontaneous recognition by the intuitive intellect—a visitation or moment of grace, as it were, after long discipline. In either case, the recollection of the Ideas is both the means and the goal of true knowledge.
Did anyone ever describe a specific, detailed procedure for achieving this?
This thread actually starts off with a pretty good list. They are all doozies though. I would have added Shankara and maybe some of Augustine's deep cuts like De Trinitate and the semiotics stuff.
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy might be the most accessible practical intro to the Platonic ascent, although it is also a bit theory heavy.
For practice you have to look to the mystics. The Cloud of Unknowing is a good place to start. "Miester Eckhart's Book of Secrets," is a good set of aphorisms to ponder too, and then there is Saint John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mount Carmel.
That list looks like tons and tons of theory, not something actionable.
I've yet to find any mystics that give clear instructions. Do you have specific recommendations?
John of the Cross and the Cloud of Unknowing (anonymous) are spiritual guides, not theory.
>John of the Cross and the Cloud of Unknowing (anonymous) are spiritual guides, not theory.
I'm too much of a literal-minded autist to understand their poetic language. Statements like 'Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love.' are confusing and meaningless to me.
Aren't those just projections with more cut-outs so they look shinier and maybe more complex?
These guys offered actual solutions.
flood it with water
Ὁ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκούειν ἀκουέτω
rave in the cave!!!
Kant distinguishes between phenomena (things as they appear to us) and noumena (things as they are in themselves), asserting that while we can know phenomena through our senses, we cannot know noumena because they are beyond the scope of human cognition.
Is this not just a more clear version of Plato’s cave? Or am I missing something about Plato’s cave?
Wait until you realize that the Greek word for forms, eidos, means "look."
It isn't.
Plato is talking about a higher realm.
>those who see, those who can be shown, and the blind
Animal subjectivity is at least on the surface of life-- they see directly but not straight through to essence. Requiring the mediation of representational thoughtthe dangers of wordcel-ism is still not yet fully recollection proper, Anamnesis. That requires theurgy to see through. One is either at home with Being, or he is lost.
Kant was never after - primarily or otherwise - a mere epistemology. The concern is Metaphysics.
You first need to establish how you would know you left the cave. And who's to say there's only one cave?
Address this
what’s the deeper part of Plato’s cave I’m dying to know
Phenomena are contingent on contexts. There's no binaries. Maybe a lined spectrum. "Noumena" is also just a man-made category, perhaps a brighter shadow. Perhaps the light itself to which we cannot get accustomed to, dooming us to the cave-reality.
When you look at something red your eyes pick up different wavelengths that cones in your eye picks up, but we can all agree on the experience of red “phenomena”. Yet nobody has seen the “noumena” red. Is that the cave? Wtf are you fricking talking about you son of a b***h
And what feeling is conveyedby this red? What memories does it unearth? What process taught you this? Does it remind you of your standing in society? What is the chemistry of your retina? Is that not you - just a tool? What does your brain filter and when does it do it? Can you direct this filter?
Why stop at noumena? Let us add meonma and panonta.
I personally like Fettucine
Wow you’re really moronic dude. Keep infinite regressing everything. You’re turning something very simple into an epistemological argument. The eyes are connected to your brain which enters your consciousness. That’s how I know. Stfu you gay b***h
I don't mind you settling in the fifth cave. Whatever floats your boat.
What is Plato’s cave? Is it beyond your grasp? Do you think you can’t know what the cave is?
bros... plato was referring to how it's like being a philosopher. keep that in context when you try to work this out. what distinguishes a philosopher from a normie? lol.
if your interpretation doesn't answer this, you don't understand the allegory.
which seems to be nearly every comment in this thread. ??????
'Tis
plato's cave is my room
>comes from the world of light above us
>tells us all about it
>tells us how to get there
>we reject and kill him
Plato's Cave led to "thinkers" like Mark Fisher. A beautiful illusion will always be preferable to a harsh reality.
If you don't take it as an allegory for schizo mysticism bullshit, the "point" is that you never truly know whether or not you're out of the cave.
Even if you see beyond the shadows and rise out of that chamber, you might just be now in a higher cave, not actually on the surface. So the prescribed solution is to always be questioning your assumed biases, assumptions, and thought patterns.
You always want to be rising out of the cave, but can never just assume that you've finally made it and rest on your laurels.
Platos cave is a cheap knockoff of the revelation given to Parmenides. In the latter case, the mortal who "leaves the cave" receives a divine education outside so that he can run rings around the troglodytes who got left behind.
>how do you leave the cave for good?
DMT
or
high-dose of shroomz
/// He liked to fulminate over moral depravity and the decline of traditional family life /// A stone mason was employed to engrave the following epitaph on a tradesman's wife: "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband" /// The sudden onset of rain caught everyone by surprise, and people scrambled for cover /// Yes, certainly the happy ending necessarily doesn't mean that, you know, everybody goes prancing in the sunlight and dancing /// Law, in his view, to be law at all must at a minimum comport with certain norms: regularity, publicity, clarity, stability /// Alex was the cryptonym for Colonel Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky of the GRU, a man who had provided the British and American intelligence services with information beyond price /// The senator has gotten into hot water with constituents over his callous remarks /// They slunk away a few minutes later, looking significantly less wienery /// With poetry, as with going to sea, we should push from the shore and reach a certain elevation before we unfurl all our sails /// The Iowa caucuses get a lot of attention during the presidential primary season /// After he was misquoted in the interview, he knew he would have to run the gauntlet of his colleagues' anger /// We want you to give us the lowdown on your teammates /// Your glum mood can rub off on those around you /// The report states that vandalism is a pestilence that must be stamped out /// I spent the night scrunched (up) in the back of the car /// The killer acted without fear of retribution /// The café is a fun, casual spot, great for a pop-in after work with friends /// I had to explain it to him three times, but finally the penny dropped /// Papers under the rubric "decorative arts" are devoted to diverse objects ///
You can't. You can't leave the cave. There is no way to have true knowledge. We can make good guesses and approximations from within the cave and that will have to do because we have limited powers of perception and cognition
More like Plato GRAVE AYE BOMBACLAD RASTAFARI BE DA FIRSTA
the cave was just plato telling you that the media is fake and gay.
>some guy comes and tries to lead you out of the cave
>NOOO DONT TOUCH ME IM WATCHING THE PRESIDENT TELL ME ABOUT HOW THE "VACCINES" ARE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME RIGHT NOW?!?
Comprehension itself creates the shadows. We can't comprehend the pure forms without filtering them and creating shadows of them in our minds.
The cave isn't private, but communal. The other people projecting are just that, other people that teach the authoritative opinions of a community. The other cave dwellers are also separate individuals, they compete with each other for honors, praises, and prizes, over who is the sharpest at seeing the shadows, and over who knows the order they'll go by in.
Building the mind is communal project. Your mind would be very different if you were raised by wolves.
Which means that it isn't a private experience of "comprehension creating the shadows."
The project of comprehension is communal. We work together to filter reality into simplified shadows in our minds. To completely comprehend all reality it would all be contained in the mind which is impossible, we can only hold shadows.
>So,how do you leave the cave for good?
You don't. You're always in some sort of cave because enlightenment is a horizon to strive for, not a prize to hold in your hand.
>I considered my ego-death
Ego death is the last defense of the ego. Who is it that seeks ego death?
B00kmark
>option a
There's no initiation or ego death or anything to this one.
The way I see it is that leaving the cave is beginning to see things for how they are. People "in the cave" don't see really things, they instead make up representative images to serve as more simplistic mental constructs to them. It's a little hard to explain.
Someone perceptive can look at people walking and identify someone used to marching, a limp, and so on. Someone "in the cave" might just notice that they're walking. It's like this for everything, it's not what you see, but a reflection of it you cast in your mind.
If you've ever played Psychonauts and use the telepathy power then you might have an idea.
>option b
this does indeed have to do with psychedelic, and then it would all be total guesswork
>Plato’s cave
>tfw
I always viewed the allegory of the cave as our state in the fallen world: We fell from Gods perfect grace (the surface) and all that we call existence is fragmented and fallen with us. We call the fragments 'reality' but it is only a shadow of reality, and the fire (false light) that casts those shadows on the wall is Lucifer. 'Breaking the chains' or however Socrates describes it, is the realization that this is our current state. Climbing out of the cave and onto the surface is an allusion to cleaning our spirit, abandoning vice and evil in favor of virtue and grace. The surface, if you can make it there, is quite literally heaven, or complete and utter 'perfect' reality, uninhibited by evil and the fall, and fully illuminated and perfected by God (the sun).
I should also note I'm a Christian. Plato and Socrates existed before Christ but in the Christian church Socrates is considered a "Christian before Christ" by Saint Justin Martyr