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Reading
on: Plato's ideal worldview
Plato’s
World of Ideal Forms and Ideas from The Republic
Jowett Translation [excerpt —660 words]
Behold!
human beings living in a underground den, which has
a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along
the den; here they have been from their childhood, and
have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot
move, and can only see before them, being prevented
by the chains from turning round their heads. Above
and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and
between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised
way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built
along the way, like the screen which marionette players
have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
And do you see men passing along the wall carrying all
sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals
made of wood and stone and various materials, which
appear over the wall?
They
are strange prisoners… Like ourselves. They see
only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another,
which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner
they would only see the shadows. To them the truth would
be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow
if the prisoners are released and disabused of their
error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled
suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk
and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains;
the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to
see the realities of which in his former state he had
seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying
to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but
that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and
his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has
a clearer vision… will he not be perplexed?…
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the
upper world…
The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of
the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me
if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent
of the soul into the intellectual world according to
my poor belief, -- whether rightly or wrongly God knows.
But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the
world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of
all, and is seen only with an effort… [and] just
as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light
without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge
can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned
from the world of becoming into that of being …
[and] you have seen the beautiful and just and good
in their truth.
[Editor’s
comment]
This
is Plato’s famous allegory of the cave. He maintains
that the common view of things are only shadows of what
is real. There exists an ideal world of ideal forms
and ideas. For example, there are many forms of tables
in the physical world. They display (some more than
others) aspects of ideal tableness. None are perfect.
But the intellect recognizes the existence of the perfect
table, as well as the perfect human and the ideal of
perfect beauty and goodness.
All objects and ideas in the physical world merely resemble
their perfect forms. These perfect forms are eternal
and only they can be the object of true knowledge. It
is the soul of a person that dimly perceives and longs
for this world of ideal forms.
According
to Plato the universe and heavenly bodies must have
the ideal form. They are eternal, perfect and unchanging.
Since the sphere is the most perfect three-dimensional
shape and the circle the most perfect two-dimensional
one the universe must be a sphere and all motion of
the heavenly bodies must be uniform circular motion.
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