Written by Joss Duggan (Reading Time: 7 mins)

For obvious reasons, I had to start our series on Thought Experiments with the great man himself and explore Plato's allegory of the cave. It appears in book seven of The Republic wherein Plato discusses the nature of reality with his older brother, Glaucon, and his mentor, Socrates.

This particular part of Plato's writings has been discussed and debated for centuries and is still the starting point for many an undergraduate course in Philosophy because it's such a great jumping-off point into the wider canon of philosophical literature. It also now raises new questions when we link it with modern ideas about honesty and transparency in the workplace, and our own skepticism and rejection of the unknown. But before we get into all of that, here's the story...

The Cave

Imagine yourself in a deep, dark cave, far beneath the cold ground. Water drips down off the ceiling where prisoners sit, chained down, unable to stand, facing a tall grey wall. They have lived this way their entire lives, never having seen the outside world, much less the sun. A fire burns on the other side of the cave and between the fire and the prisoners, a stone path winds it's way from the depths of the cavern all the way up to the surface.

Every day, people come walking through, travelling to and fro, carrying items from the surface into the cave and back; but the prisoners, with their face to the wall and unable to move or turn around, perceive only the outlines of these figures, their shadows cast starkly against the grey wall with the light emanating from the fire on the other side of the cave.

The shackled prisoners, having never properly seen their surroundings, believe these 'shadows' to be the 'real' world as the sounds and voices within the cave echo off the walls and appear to come from the shadows themselves.

One day, one of the prisoners has his shackles loosened so that he can turn around and see his surroundings. Blinded by the light emanating from the fire, he instinctively turns away, refusing to look around and see his situation for what it is. He turns back towards the wall, eyes still burning, but taking comfort in the knowledge that with his sight returning to him, he can go back to his safe, normal existence.

Suddenly and before he can gather himself, a guard pulls him away from the wall where he's sat and begins dragging him up the long winding path towards the surface. The prisoner screams and cries out to be left alone, but the guard pays no attention. He continues his long and arduous journey towards the bright light of the surface, kicking and screaming in fear as he goes.

As he edges closer and closer to the surface, his eyes slowly adjust until they find themselves at the cave's mouth and he is thrust into the real world. He slowly stands, taking in the landscape; the green trees swaying in the wind, the blue cloudless sky and the hot yellow sun beating down upon him. The prisoner, now freed from the cave, starts to understand the nature of this 'true' reality and that he has been living all his life in an illusion, one still shared by his fellow inmates down in the cave.

The world outside is equally beautiful as it is grotesque, but having now seen the real world he realises how naive he had been and desperately wants to free his fellow inmates. So he rushes back down into a cave that seems darker than he first remembered because his eyes are now accustomed to the light from the world outside. Though he worries he may never see the light again, he courageously pushes on, further down into the darkness below.

By the time he reaches his old home, he can barely see at all - the darkness is so acute, even the fire in the corner doesn't give enough light for him to see well and he can no longer see the shadows on the walls as he did before. He hurries over to his friends and begins to tell them about his journey to the surface. At first, his former compatriots dismiss his ideas as outlandish and wild, they say he's lost his mind and leaving the wall has turned him insane. Convinced he must 'show' them the light by force, the first now enlightened former prisoner tries to drag the other inmates out into the light, to show them the path. But they quickly turn on him, even becoming violent. They don't want to see the light, they aren't ready for it and perhaps they never will be. For now they're happy to sit in the cave, shackled to the ground, watching the shadows dance across their dark, grey wall.

Interpretation - So what's it all about?

The allegory of the cave describes what Plato believes it is to be a philosopher or 'enlightened' human being. He describes the initial refusal of the truth, the blinding pain at seeing it for the first time and the difficult path that we must go on to learn and grow as human beings. Eventually, once we have expanded our consciousness with new knowledge, it's impossible to go back and live inside the cave and we naturally want to bring others into that new understanding too.

If this idea seems a little familiar to you....then it may be because it been the basis of many blockbuster science-fiction movies such as 'The Matrix', 'Dark City' and 'The Truman Show'. In fact, all science-fiction have deeply philosophical themes at their core; the nature of reality, what does it mean to be human, what is consciousness, etc - which will be the topic of a future post, but I digress...

But we have to exercise some humility here - we so often feel SO certain that we know better and that the way we see the world is the right one. It raises the question, are we the prisoner who made it to the surface already? OR are we the prisoner who's still trapped in the cave? Perhaps we only escape one cave to find ourselves in another, trapped by a new set of ideas and understanding that still doesn't represent the 'true' nature of reality (if there even is such a thing.)

We see something similar every day with the people we live and work with - we talk a lot about how important honesty is in both our personal and professional lives, but the truth isn't just uncomfortable, it can be excruciating and unbearable. Do we really want the truth? We do if we want to be better human.

This is the insight behind the 'Radical Candor' movement. Assuming for the moment (and it's a massive assumption) that our colleagues' feedback about us is accurate (and therefore synonymous with an objective 'truth'), then receiving it as often as we can is like rocket-fuel for our growth. If we can withstand enough of the truth and live outside our comfort zones for long enough (where the truth often lives and growth always happens) then we'll grow stronger and faster than those who choose not to. This is one of the core ideas of 'Growth Mindset', first conceived of by Carol Dweck at Stanford University.

Some people aren't ready for that kind of truth, they need to move to the surface more slowly and that's absolutely fine; everyone is walking their own path, at their own pace. But like learning a new language, between you and fluency lies a thousand embarrassing and painful mistakes that if you don't find a way to cope with and normalise, will drive you back down into your cave.

(Parenthesis: For an incredible guide to getting your children to better embrace their mistakes, take a look at 'The Straight-A Conspiracy' by education experts Hunter Maats and Katie Locke O'Brien.)

It takes a huge amount of courage to turn and face an unpleasant truth. There's an important idea from psychology called 'cognitive dissonance' which we'll explore in another post but when we have conflicting ideas, we tend to find a way to rationalise them or ignore the more painful of the two. Plato knew how hard people will fight to maintain their world-view; when Socrates was put to death in ancient Athens, it was precisely because his lectures conflicted with accepted wisdoms and the ruling elite of the day decided it was easier to execute him than to deal with their own internal dissonant ideas.

Plato's cave reminds us that we all live in the dark - there are always new things to discover and things that we are completely unaware of. The question is, as we live our lives, when the light beckons us forward, do we fearfully retreat? Or do we instead, step bravely away from our own shadow-walls and struggle up towards the surface where the promise of personal growth awaits.

To Sum Up

Plato describes the journey of a prisoner who finally learns the true nature of the reality after having been trapped inside a cave all of his life, believing that shadows were the real world
The prisoner tries to show his friends a way out of the cave but they don't want to leave
The cave is an allegory to describe how people are often afraid to face the truth of reality
Embracing the truth and developing self-awareness is the only way we can start to grow
It 'can' be a painful process, but the more painful truth we are able to withstand, the better
We all have our blindspots and live in the dark to some degree and so we must stay humble

Thought Experiments: Plato's Cave

The Cave

Interpretation - So what's it all about?

To Sum Up

pOPULAR Articles

Further REading