PHI 1104 Lecture 10: Class Notes
20 Mar 2017
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The cave an education in philosophy: book vii of the republic begins with the image of the cave. They are chained and face the back wall of the cave so that they can only see in front of themselves. They cannot turn their heads: people who are not philosophers are like these prisoners. Those who attempt to become philosophers are like prisoners who escape their chains. They make a painful ascent out into the sunlight. At first, the sunlight hurts their eyes that have grown accustomed to the dark: a fire burns far above and behind the chained prisoners. No sunlight penetrates the cave: also, between the prisoners and the fire is a low wall. There are people on the wall carrying various objects, statues of people and other animals, trees and so on. They hold them up high so that these statues project above the wall.
