Philosophy

Dr. Hugh Benson (Univ Oklahoma)

A common crux in Republic scholarship surrounds a passage found near the end of Plato’s image of the Cave in which Socrates instructs…… Glaucon to apply this image to what was said before. How — the problem goes — are we to apply (προσαπτε’ον) the image of the Cave to what has been said before? I maintain that the central presupposition of the orthodox interpretation, viz. that the Cave contains four hierarchical stages corresponding to the four hierarchical stages in the Line, is unsound. This is hardly new, but I go on to present an alternative interpretation of how the Cave image applies to what has been said before which better accommodates the context of the passage. Properly understood, the Cave image represents educational institutions aimed at reliably producing philosopher-rulers