Wisdom and Ruling in the Republic

Abstract

Few images in Western literature are as vivid as Plato’s cave. In Book VII of the Republic, Plato compares the state of human existence to that of people living in a subterranean cavern. The populace, whose only source of light comes from a fire burning inside the cave, are chained together with their faces permanently turned toward a wall. When objects are passed in front of the fire, the prisoners are only able to view the shadows that these objects cast on the wall, and, in their ignorance, believe that these shadows constitute reality. By chance, a few individuals are torn away from the rest, forced out of the darkness and led upward toward the light. These are the philosophers, who are at first so dazzled by the sight of this higher reality that they are temporarily blinded. When their eyes have become accustomed to the brightness, they recognize that what they had formerly taken for reality is but a poor imitation of it: the fire in the cave pales in comparison to the sunlight, and the objects of which they have seen shadows in the cave were but figurines of the real objects that exist outside. Although they naturally enough desire to remain in their new surroundings, this wish is thwarted when they are forced to return to the darkness and utilize their newfound knowledge to govern the inhabitants below.