In The Republic, Plato described an allegory about reality using the metaphor of a cave. It is usually referred to as The Allergory of the Cave. It is probably one of the most familiar and discussed concepts in ancient philosophy. Plato based his learning on that of his teacher, Socrates, who himself wrote nothing down.
Socrates,
not the best looking man in the world
(this matters later on in the story)
To see some student diagrams of the cave, click here.
Although I'm not a philosopher, Plato's Allegory of the Cave is one of the primary symbols of erudite western culture.It has been examined, contemplated, written about, discussed and puzzled over by men (and some women) for genereations. In this article, I am going to analyze it as if it were a dream because it is from the DreamMind of all of us. The Greeks were our ancient fathers. They shaped our thoughts.
Analyzing The Allergory of the Cave as if it were a dream reveals something of its progenitor, Socrates. As a symbolist, I felt free to do this since little is known about Socartes' life, including whether or not this is really his own description or that of Plato, or someone else. Like most intuitives, I suppose history should mostly be interpreted as myth anyway. If you would like to read a hilarious description of what things wind up in official history or survive as relics, manuscripts, etc. and how utterly random this process can be, read the introductory chapters of I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Graves was poetry professor at Oxford University in England between 1961-66.
Nevertheless, myths are powerful shapers of thought and action in later times.
The allegory describes the process of enlightenment using typical imagery found in worldwide religious or mythical material. The cave is a womb from which some "prisoners" are given a second birth. It is intersected with a bridge over which people carry shapes of animals and things. These "puppets" are moved back and forth over the bridge, suggesting lineaer time: past, present and future. Perpendicular, the floor of the cave rises from the back/bottom where the prisoners are to the top where there is a phallic fire at the entrance. This vertical movement from down below to up above symbolizes states of onsciousness from "darkness" to "light" (ranging from blindness to firelight to diffused daylight to sunlight to sun reflected in water to moon to sun itself.) The process continues from inside to outside the cave.
The crossing of the vertical and horizontal planes in the interior of the cave is like the shape of churches in the Middle Ages, which is turn are shaped like the cross itself. Crosses symbolize the oft explored mystery of the soul incarnate in flesh, psycho-soma. Socrates frequently talked about the soul in the books Plato wrote.
Earth, fire and air (light) are present in the cave. The fourth element is missing, water. Water is universally a symbol of the receptive feminine (yin) and particularly of the feeling, connecting or relating function (eros). This is just what is missing in Socrates' life and philosophy.
Socrates' relationship with the feminine was negative or undeveloped. We know that his mother was a midwife. Socartes described his role of philosopher as a midwife (identifying with the feminine, not "relating" to it) but then says, "Like a midwife, I am barren myself ...." This is an odd thing for Socrates to say about himself except that I thinjk on reflection it's one of the truest things he said! Socrates' "method" was entirely passive when you think about it. He makes the other person assert themselves and then criticizes it or tears it apart, much like the negative female energy personified in the nasty Greek Sphinx which got the hero (Oedipus) to stop and argue with her rather than take action. "Do you really want to slay that dragon, honey? You might mess up those designed jeans I spent an hour ironing for you. Why don't you just stay home with me instead?" I think this is why Socrates' writings have always irritated me. It seems like he "sets his sutdents up", a styloe of teaching I resist. I know if I got aanywhere near him, I'd refuse to talk at all.
The Spell of the Sensuous by linguist David Abram underlined Socrates' pivitol role as mediator between memorized narratives such as The Iliad and the beginning of the reflected reasoning permitted by a written alphabet. This must have been an exciting discovery and development at that time in our evolution but it's a style har to get excited about today. Abram has an interesting theory about the Greeks closing up or filling in the (vowel) spaces left by the Semitics in their ALPHA BETA which demystified the spoken word and disassociated it from sensuous nature, thus the title of the book. The vowel spaces were places for the Atmen, the magic breath of life, to enter and leave.
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THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS by David Abram
Socrates married late in life to a "shrew". People were allowed to talk that way about women back then. Socrates described his wife Xantippe as a horse that was difficult to ride. When his friend Alcibiades complained about her constant scenes, Socrates said she was no worse than the goose on his friend's estate. She had given him young. Socrates' connection with his wife was apparently lacking other than the sensual. It is typical for "airy" or supra-rational intellectuals like Socrates to attract women who become more and more hysterical, being pushed to the extreme in trying to get them to "relate" at a feeling level.
Instead, Socrates' "relationships" were with the young men he taught. If thse were straightforward, he wouldn't have been accused of seducing them. There was nothing wrong with homosexuality in those days, but Socrates' "feeling" nature must have been off to get himself in this particular kind of trouble.
The other "water" in Socrates' life is the drink of hemlock. Poisons are symbols of the dark feminine. And it is interesting that Socrates died in this woman's way.
Another aspect of the dark feminine in Socrates' life was his daimonion (sometimes called daimon, a word related to "demon" but precedent and not pejorative). This peculiar attribute, which rational reductionists would say was simply the condition of catalepsy, is a type of subconscious inner relationship with the female but instead of "her" guiding him like a Muse, anima or "Soul", she just tells him what he can't do (like the Greek Sphinx and the shrew).
Socrates' negative relationship with the feminine is also seen in his relation to the earth element. Earth symbolizes "Mother Earth" or the receptiveness of the female body and the "earthing" capability of women. The cave (the earth element in the allergory) is a symbolic womb but it is specifically described as a "prison", which is negative confinement. Even being here on earth or being in a physical body is a lesser or negative thing to an airy intellectual type like Socrates.
"Non-work" is another negative way Socrates related to the feminine/earth principle. Men like Socrates elevate inspired, abstract and "creative" endeavor while denigrating cotidial, routine, earth-centered work, relegating it to women. Despite having a wife and two or three (accounts vary) children, Socrates never had a job or made money in any regular way. And he was proud of that.
In her book, Dreams, Marie-Louise von Franz, a Jungian analyst, analyzes the very interesting dream Socrates had during the last days of his life wherein he says he was told to "make music and work". Left-brained Socrates' subconscious seems to be telling him even at that late date to relate to the right brain or feminine. His answer was to copy over Aesop's fables.
The ending of the allegory also deal with this "problem" when the question comes up of getting a philosopher king to return to the "cave" to help (certainly a projection of Socrates' problem onto others). The patriarchal elevates "up" there, the "lofty" pursuits of the aspirational and abstract, and considers it a "lesser" thing to deal with the realities of life such as earning a living, solving day to day problems or other-related connectedness. If Socrates' feeling function were better developed, I think he would understand the reason the enlightened of all times/cultures do what they do is out of love or relatedness. Although it may well be reluctantly, it is never with coercion.
The archetype Socrates most closely fits himself, although he is describing what amounts to spiritual enlightenment, is that of the teacher. Dry intellectualsd like Socrates and stereotypical PhDs, forget that nothing is taught and nothing is learned without love. Philo-sopher means "lover of knowledge".
I also feel Socrates would not have taken the poison if his reminine/feeling side were more developed. Feeling type people have more complex moral frameworks whether or not they have well-defined ethical systems. He might have decided to sacrifice his precious ideal for other valuable things, such as being around to watch his kids grow up (even help?). Is this less noble. less meaningful? Morality, based on connectedness and feeling, is much more complicated than ethics which is rationally based, fairly static and unchanging or at least non-situational.
Socrates gives a typical description of the process of enlightenment when he says that once outside the cave, seekers look first at reflections of "truth" in water and "light" reflected in the moon and stars. Eastern religions and others who describe the process usually say you can't "look directly at the sun" but must see it first reflected in the water or moon -- feminine, subconscious, incuding dreams, symbols and meditation. It's questionable to me, from analysing the Allegory, that Socrates himself has experienced this. Maybe it was added by Plato. Socrates appears not to have been well enough integrated. His final dream about the beautiful, comely woman in white (finally a soulful feminine presence in his life, albeit undeveloped) may be an initiation but into death, not enlightenment.
the death
of Socrates
About his final dream Socrates says, "I thought I saw the fair form of a beautiful woman approaching me, clothed in bright raiment, and she called to me, saying, 'O Socrates, the third day hence to cloddy Phthia shalt thou come!'" This dream is analyzed at length by von Franz and includes an interesting reference to Socrates' birth day, the 6th day of Thargelia. This day was dedicated to Artemis Eleithya, the many-breasted helper in childbirth (a midwife). An earlier custom on this day, as well, was the sacrifice of the pharmakoi, two particularly ugly and misshapen individuals who were scapegoated in ritual for the community. Is it just a coincidence, then, that the ugly and misshapen "midwife" Socartes was also sacrificed?
this page last touched 9.11.2007
