Abstract

ZAMOSC, Gabriel. The Political Significance of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Ideas y Valores [online]. 2017, vol.66, n.165, pp.237-265. ISSN 0120-0062.  https://doi.org/10.15446/ideasyvalores.v66n165.55201.

The article argues that Plato's cave is fundamentally a political and not an epistemological allegory, and that only if we see it thus can we understand its relation to the images of the sun and the line. On the basis of textual evidence, the article raises questions regarding the main hypotheses grounding the effort to find an epistemological parallel between the cave and the line: that the prisoners represent humanity in general, and that the cave symbolizes the visible world of everyday experience, while the world outside the cave represents the realm of ideas. The suspension of these assumptions makes possible a reading that highlights the cultural and political issues at stake in this famous allegory.

Keywords : Plato; allegory; cave; culture; politics.

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