Plato (424-348 B.C.)

Terms:

• Socratic Dialogue - a genre of prose invented in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC by Socrates and later developed by Roman philosophers like Cicero. It is a dramatic narrative in which characters discuss moral and philosophical problems.
• allegory -a story which consists of at least two levels of many: one literal meaning and one or more figurative meanings; allegory is a story told through symbols.
• Platonic forms/ideals - the archetypal or universal ideas and concepts which exist in the mind of God beyond material existence

Discussion Questions:

• Who are the prisoners supposed to represent? What is the “cave”?
• If the artificial objects carried along the wall designate objects that we perceive in our experience with the world, what do the shadows signify?
• Why is philosophy or the personal pursuit of wisdom difficult?
• Why does Plato stress the difficulty that the prisoners have in looking at the light of the sun?
• Why do prisoners receive their returning colleague as they do? What does this tell us of the position of the philosopher in society?
• How does one actually (i.e., in real life, not in the allegory) get out of the “cave”?
• How can knowing things on the authority of someone else be a form of “ignorance”?