The Allegory of the Cave and the True Earth Myth, Essay Example

One of the most important things Socrates teaches about in the writings of Plato is of the forms and the intelligible realm. These concepts in Platonic dualism state that there is a higher level of existence where the conceptual forms of the universe reside. Goodness may be present all around us, but it is only in the intelligible realms where there is the form of goodness that gives goodness to this world. As opposed to specific, material, mutable objects, it contains the conceptual, immaterial, and unchanging forms of those objects. It is only through knowing the intelligible realms that someone can actually have true knowledge of this world.

The True Earth is a myth told by Socrates seemingly concerning the afterlife, but being truly about the forms. According to this account, what we know as the Earth is actually an area within the Earth where air and water have gathered in a way that makes living possible. Yet, there are more of these areas within the planet, and some of them are much more ideal for living than the one we inhabit. The reason given for the increased perfection in these other hollows of the Earth is that they are uncorrupted. The most perfect area is the True Earth. It is the most exterior one and in which the air is replaced by ether and there is no disease. The gods live in the temples of this Earth and are available for its residents to speak with. This is where virtuous people go to live after their deaths, while the less virtuous end up in even more subterranean regions. While the most virtuous people who have perfected themselves through a pursuit of knowledge are separated from their bodies and live in a way even better than the True Earth, this still represents a highly desirable outcome.

The myth here is not to be taken literally as Socrates assuredly does not believe that by going upwards one can find other areas of Earth one lives on. This Earth is in a completely different realm and not accessible through any sort of locomotion possible. However, the perfect, true Earth is above this one on a metaphorical level. It is in fact on a higher realm of existence than the one on which people currently live on. This is because the True Earth represents the intelligible realm, where the forms exist. This present realm only contains objects themselves, while the True Earth represents the place where the forms reside. Socrates points out that things in this realm are several degrees better than their subterranean counterparts. “And in this fair region everything that grows—trees, and flowers, and fruits—are in a like degree fairer than any here” (Phaedo). Things are more perfect there due to the differences between forms and the specific things that take on those forms. For example, the form of a horse must necessarily be perfect and immutable while an individual horse has no such requirements.

A similar story and metaphor is used by Socrates in another Plato writing, The Republic, namely The Allegory of the Cave. The cave contains prisoners who can do nothing but look directly into one wall of the cave. The cave contains moving statues and a fire that casts shadows on the wall. Therefore the prisoners can see shadows of other things moving around, and due to this they begin to see these shadows as true objects and as the extent of reality. One day, one of the prisoners is freed and turns around to see the fire and the statues. Initially he is disconcerted by the actual images and the fires, but as he understands the way these produce the shadows he comes to appreciate knowing this. At this point, he exits the cave and sees the full world, even more real than the statues and comes to see the power the sun has on the rest of the world. In this allegory, the shadows represent how we see things in this realm, several steps removed from their actual source. The Sun represents the forms themselves, as it is providing the source for what we see in our world. The objects in between this in the metaphor represent different stages of reality. Finally, the fire is the source that makes the shadows seem like reality, a metaphor for our realm itself. Overall, this story represents the prisoner’s progress from imagination to belief to cognition and finally understanding.

The metaphor in this allegory is quite easy to follow, part of the reason for its extensive fame compared to the rest of philosophy. The progress from the cave to the knowledge of the sun is the educational process philosophy needs to strive for. It also relates to the forms as does the story of the True Earth. The shadows are the lowest level, created by higher levels of beings. The statues are themselves manipulated to resemble naturally occurring things, putting the prisoners staring at the wall several steps from the actual object they believe themselves watching. The connection to reality is that we see objects that are removed from their perfect forms as these shadows were.

The stories feature many similarities. In both cases the people assume they are in the highest level of existence possible since it is all they know. However, in the end there is at least one level higher than the one the subjects of the stories exist in. This shows how residents of our realm do not necessarily see the intelligible realm, so there is a natural inclination to believe it does not exist. Yet, it is only through understanding of these higher levels that a true understanding of the prisoners’ lives or the life on the subterranean Earth can be reached. This is why Socrates, who always tried to present a true understanding to his students, tells both of them.

Four Arguments for Immortality of the Soul

The Phaedo is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato, detailing his time in jail waiting for the death penalty to be administered for his disbelief in the official gods of Athens. Due to his impending death, the conversation turns to the nature of the afterlife and whether or not it even exists. Socrates, a believer in an immortal soul, argues for the existence of an afterlife. He uses four different arguments in this dialogue to prove the immortal nature of the soul. They are the argument from opposites of the cyclical argument, the theory of recollection, the affinity argument, and the argument from the form of life.

The first argument comes from the opposite nature of life and death, and is appropriately titled The Opposites argument. It centers on the fact that opposites are the source of one another. Life and death are the opposites of one another and therefore if things come to be out of their opposites then the opposite natures of life and death mean that they come to be out of each other. Life becomes death and death becomes life, suggesting that there is a cycle between the two instead of an endpoint. As proof of this Socrates points out that if death did not become life and life became death, soon all things would be dead and life would cease to exist. The continual survival of life on Earth suggests that death is not final.

The next argument concerns a priori knowledge about the universe and the nature that people learn. True knowledge would be about the eternal forms that give the things around us their nature. Yet the forms cannot be learned through observations, as we may observe equality but can never observe the Form of Equality. Therefore knowledge is acquired through recollection of previously known information being recalled rather than learning them for the first time. This means that knowledge must come from somewhere and be existent at birth. Therefore, it can be concluded that the soul must be the source of that knowledge and thus it must precede the body.

The penultimate argument is known as the argument from affinity. It begins with the premise that there are two kinds of things, those that are mortal, corporeal, and visible type and also the immortal, divine, and invisible. The soul, since it is a singular, non-composite being is likely to be of the latter type as it cannot be broken at all. The body, which can be seen to be of the opposite type, even outlasts death for some period of time in the form of a corpse. Therefore the soul must outlast the body, meaning it will significantly outlast death.

After these three arguments for the soul’s immortality are presented, Simmias and Theban Cebes present their objections to the first three arguments that Socrates provided. Simmias compares the soul to the tuneless of an instrument. There is nothing about tuneless that makes it necessarily fleeting, yet it cannot survive the destruction of the instrument. The analogy is that the soul might seem to be of a permanent nature, but it will not be able to survive without the corporeal agent that it exists with. Sebes points out another flaw in the three arguments, that being that they show a soul exists for a period before and after the body, but that does not necessarily mean it is immortal. Socrates responds to the Simmian argument by stating that the second argument, that of recollection, shows the soul existed before the body, nullifying this objection.

While his response to Simmias could rely on a previous argument, to respond to Sebes he must project an entirely new fourth argument. Like others, it makes reference to the intelligible realm forms, but is more reliant on them and derives its name from forms. Forms must be absolute and unchanging in their property. For example, a beautiful person may be beautiful in one context, but not to others, making their beauty relative. Yet, the form of beauty must always be present and existent. As the soul is what gives the body its life, it must possess that nature in an unchanging way. Obviously possessing the nature of life in absolute and unchanging terms must lead to immortality.

The first issue with these arguments is the assumption of dualism in each of them. Presumably, the existence of a soul may have been just assumed and not necessary of any sort of proof in these years. However, in a more modern context the theory of pure materialism has certainly become more prominent. Socrates had a life view that was based on a realm populated by bodies and another by souls, yet it is possible there is nothing separate from the body to be immortal.

The arguments each have their specific issues as well. For example, the fact that opposites sometimes give birth to one another does not mean they must always do so. The theory of recollection supposes there is no way to understand forms through observation, yet could not the repeated observation of equal things give rise to an understanding of the form of equality? It also presents an infinite regression problem in that if all knowledge is based on recollection, there is no account for where the knowledge being recalled is coming from. The affinity argument is the most susceptible to the response from Sebes, it does not seek to prove anything beyond the soul outlasting the body, something well short of immortality. Despite the shortcomings with the arguments, these works by Plato on the life of Socrates are still incredibly influential due to their ability to shape thinking for the most of Western civilization.

References

“Plato’s Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics/>. Plató. Phaedo. Print.

“Phaedo.” SparkNotes. SparkNotes. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/phaedo>.