Allegory of the cave

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The allegory of the cave is one of the most famous parables in ancient philosophy . It comes from the Greek philosopher Plato (428 / 427-348 / 347 BC), who had it told by his teacher Socrates at the beginning of the seventh book of his dialogue Politeía . It clarifies the meaning and necessity of the philosophical path of education, which is presented as a process of liberation. The goal is the ascent from the sensually perceptible world of transitory things, which is compared with an underground cave, into the purely spiritual world of unchangeable being. Everyone does the ascent for themselves, but since help is needed, it is also a joint effort. Before that, Socrates presented the parable of the sun and the parable of lines at the end of the sixth book . As the conclusion and highlight of the series of parables, the allegory of the cave is one of the basic texts of Platonic philosophy, as it illustrates central statements of Plato's ontology and epistemology .

The parable

reference

In the sixth book of the Politeia , Socrates explained to his interlocutors Glaukon and Adeimantos , the two brothers of Plato, the ethical and intellectual requirements that a philosopher has to meet in order to be qualified for studying the highest realm of knowledge and at the same time for political leadership tasks. In the seventh book he explains in detail what, from a philosophical point of view, human education and uneducation consist and what philosophical education ultimately aims at. To illustrate this, he introduces the allegory of the cave. Glaukon imagines the details graphically.

content

Pictorial illustration of the situation of the cave occupants

Socrates describes an underground, cave-like dwelling, from which a rough and steep passage leads up to the surface of the earth. The passage is a shaft that corresponds in height and width to the cave. People who have spent their entire lives as prisoners live in the cave. While they are sitting, they are tied at the thighs and neck so that they can only look forward to the cave wall and cannot turn their heads. Therefore, they can never see the exit behind their backs and know nothing of its existence. They cannot see themselves or the other prisoners either; the only thing they will ever see is the wall they are facing. Their dwelling is illuminated by a fire that burns far up in the distance behind them. The prisoners only see this light that illuminates the wall, but not its source. They see shadows on the wall.

Between the inside of the prison and the fire is a small wall that is not high enough to block the light from the fire. Along the wall, people carry different objects back and forth, replicas of human figures and other living things made of stone and wood. These objects protrude beyond the wall, but their bearers do not. Some porters talk to each other, others are silent.

Since the moving objects cast shadows on the cave wall that the prisoners are facing, the cave dwellers can perceive the moving shapes as shadows. But they suspect nothing of the porters. When someone speaks, the echo echoes back from the cave wall as if the shadows were speaking. Hence the prisoners believe that the shadows can speak. They regard the shadows as living beings and interpret everything that happens as their actions. What happens on the wall is for them the whole of reality and is absolutely true. They develop a science of the shadows and try to determine laws in their appearance and movements and derive forecasts from them. They give praise and honor to those who make the best predictions.

Socrates now asks Glaucon to imagine what would happen if one of the prisoners were untied and forced to stand up, turn around, look at the exit and turn to the objects themselves whose shadows he has observed so far. That person would be painfully blinded and confused by the light. She would consider the things that came into her field of vision to be less real than the familiar shadows. Therefore, she would have the need to resume her usual position, because she would be convinced that reality could only be found on the cave wall. She would not believe any contrary teachings from a benevolent liberator.

If you dragged the freed man out of the cave by force and brought him to the surface through the impassable and steep ascent, he would resist and would be even more confused, because he would be blinded by the glare of the sunlight and therefore could not see anything at first. Slowly he would have to get used to the sight of the new, whereby he could first recognize shadows, then reflections in the water and finally people and things themselves. Looking up, he would first want to familiarize himself with the night sky, later with the daylight, and finally he would dare to look directly at the sun and perceive its nature. Then he could also understand that it is the sun whose light creates shadows. After these experiences and insights, he would no longer need to return to the cave, to deal with the shadow science there and to be praised by the prisoners for it.

Should he nevertheless return to his old place, he would first have to slowly get used to the darkness of the cave. Therefore, he would do poorly for some time in the usual assessment of the shadows. From this the cave dwellers would conclude that he had ruined his eyes above. They would laugh at him and say that evidently it would not be worthwhile to leave the cave even for a try. If someone tried to free them and lead them upstairs, they would kill him if they could.

interpretation

Socrates then explains to Glaucon how to understand the parable. The cave symbolizes the world that is presented to the senses, the normal human environment, which is habitually equated with the totality of what exists. The ascent into daylight corresponds to the ascent of the soul from the world of perishable sense objects to the “spiritual place”, the intelligible world in which there is only what can only be grasped spiritually. With this Plato means the unchangeable ideas, the archetypes and models of the material phenomena in the sense of his theory of ideas . Among these purely spiritual things, the idea of ​​the good has the highest rank; the sun corresponds to it in the allegory of the cave. Socrates is convinced that one must have advanced to the idea of ​​the good in order to be able to act sensibly in private or public life.

At the same time, however, Socrates emphasizes that what he explains is only a premonition or hope (elpís) , i.e. no knowledge. Although he expresses his opinion at Glaucon's request, God may know whether it is correct . With this he makes it clear that he himself has not mastered the ascent to the idea of ​​the good and is not describing his own experience, but only his idea.

Finally, Socrates points out that someone who returns to the cave finds himself transported back from contemplation of the divine to human misery, where he first has to find his way around. Therefore, he appears clumsy and ridiculous to his incomprehensible environment. If the cave dwellers were more discerning, they would understand that there are two very different types of impaired vision. One occurs when one moves from light into dark, the other when one is moved from dark into light. It is the same with the soul of a person who is confused after a transition into another area of ​​experience and cannot recognize something. The person concerned should not be laughed at. It depends on whether he comes from the light of the knowledge of reality and now finds himself enveloped in an unfamiliar darkness or whether he has penetrated from relative ignorance into an area of ​​greater clarity that now blinds him. These two opposing causes can produce the same effect, which is of fundamental importance for assessing the respective situation.

The following remarks by Socrates concern the philosophical education, which is an art of "diversion" (periagōgḗ) . It should guide the soul from the darkness of the ephemeral to the brightness of the perfect being and finally enable it to see the idea of ​​the good. Such an ascent can only be achieved by a philosopher who persistently strives for it for a long time. Socrates emphasizes that just as the eye of the cave dweller can only turn around together with the whole body, so too can the organ of the soul with which it comprehends, not alone, but only together with the whole soul, turn around to beings . The irrational parts of the soul also need reorientation. The educational path required is detailed by Socrates. It initially includes less important lessons in gymnastics and music, then the study of the subjects required for philosophical propaedeutics in the order arithmetic , plane geometry , spatial geometry, astronomy and harmony . Care must be taken to proceed in a philosophically appropriate manner, not empirically but theory-based; otherwise the efforts are useless. Only then does training begin in dialectics , the methodical philosophical search for truth.

When the philosopher has achieved his goal, he would like to remain permanently in the higher realm. But he is obliged to return to the "cave" because he is responsible for the fate of his fellow citizens who he left there and who need his help. Since he has the virtue of justice (in the sense of Plato's understanding of justice ), he sees this.

Historical and philosophical background

In the Politeia - also in the allegory of the cave - specifically Platonic ideas are presented. The “platonic” Socrates, who appears here as a speaker and tells the parables, is a literary figure. His position cannot therefore be equated with that of the historical Socrates, whose pupil Plato was.

The statement that the cave dwellers wanted to kill a liberator is an allusion to the end of Socrates, who died in 399 BC. Was sentenced to death and executed because of his undesirable influence on the youth.

According to the theory of ideas, all things that can be perceived by the senses are only imperfect and therefore questionable images. As such, they are of very limited value at best. Natural objects, including the bodies of living beings, are images of ideas. Art products, such as works of fine art, whose authors imitate natural objects, are images of images and therefore even inferior to what they are supposed to represent. The cave dwellers deal with such images of images, because the objects carried, the shadows of which they see, are not natural things, but artificial replicas of living bodies. The prisoners, who stand in the parable for the mass of unphilosophical people, thus live in an art and fantasy world of second-order images. Your opinions are completely wrong.

reception

Philosophy and theology

Ancient and Middle Ages

In his work De natura deorum, Cicero shares a parable that comes from a now lost work by Aristotle - probably On Philosophy - and is formally reminiscent of Plato's allegory of the cave. Aristotle imagines people who spend their entire lives underground in well-furnished, splendid apartments, where they dispose of all the possessions of those who are usually thought to be happy. They only heard about the rule of the gods through hearsay. One day they may escape their subterranean homes and reach the surface of the earth. Now for the first time they see the land, the seas and the sky and in particular the size, beauty and power of the sun as well as the night starry sky and the regular movements of the celestial bodies. This leads them to the conclusion that there must be gods who do all of this.

The Middle Platonist Maximos of Tire (2nd century) tells a parable that contains individual formal elements from Plato's allegory of the cave, but the meaning and purpose of his explanations is completely different.

The late antique Christian writer Arnobius the Elder shares a cave history as a thought experiment in his work Adversus nationes (“Against the Gentiles”) . With him, the cave contains a closed habitable space in which a single person grows up, who is provided with food by an always silent wet nurse. When the person who has grown up in complete loneliness has grown up, he comes out for the first time and is asked about his origins and life story and about things that were previously completely unknown to him. In doing so, he turns out to be helpless, especially since he cannot speak at all. With this thought experiment, Arnobius wants to refute the Platonic view, according to which the soul naturally has its own knowledge, which is latent in it and which it can remember when it receives an appropriate impetus ( anamnesis theory). In doing so, however, he overlooks the fact that the "late antique Kaspar Hauser " cannot answer the questions put to him because he does not understand them at all, he does not even notice that these are questions that are being addressed to him and that answers are expected from him become. For Plato, language knowledge is not part of the anamnesis (memory of the soul of its previous knowledge). Therefore, the thought experiment with someone who is ignorant of language to refute the anamnesis theory is unsuitable from the start. As Hans Blumenberg observes, it must fail because of the misunderstanding of the condition of its possibility, which consists in understanding the questions.

The church father Gregor von Nyssa (4th century) and the influential Byzantine writer Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) devised prison parables with which they linked to the basic idea of ​​Plato's allegory of the cave and modified it in line with their Christian goals.

Early modern age

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) took up the Platonic motif in order to distinguish the new worldview initiated by Nicolaus Copernicus from the medieval one. He saw in the medieval scholastics the prisoners and in Copernicus the liberator, who for the first time showed the way out of the prison of ignorance.

The Dutch poet Hendrik Laurenszoon Spiegel (1549-1612) wrote the poem Hertspiegel ("Heart Mirror"), in which he explains his philosophical views. In the third book of the “Heart Mirror” he tells a new version of the allegory of the cave, in which the cave symbolizes the human heart.

For Francis Bacon (1561–1626) the shadows are individual prejudices, erroneous ideas that people bring with them when they step out of the cave of their ignorance and that prevent them from understanding natural conditions. They affect the entire activity of the intellect, since they create false conditions. Everyone has their own cave, which breaks and spoils the light of nature.

Modern

Martin Heidegger started out from the allegory of the cave in his criticism of the Platonic concept of truth. He laid out his conception in the essays of the essence of truth. To Plato's allegory of the cave and Theätet and Plato's doctrine of truth . Heidegger interpreted the Greek word alḗtheia (“truth”) etymologically as “unconcealment” and meant that unconcealment lies in the matter itself. Plato did not look for it there, but in that Recognition of the human being misplaced and made into a relationship between the knowing subject and the known object. Thus truth was no longer determined as the self-revelation of things, but as the correspondence of the statement with its object. The allegory of the cave marks the turning point to a new concept of truth that has shaped the understanding of truth ever since. Heidegger thought this turning point was regrettable and wanted to reverse it, because he saw it as the beginning of a decadence . His interpretation triggered a strong, sometimes critical response. The assumption of a development from an earlier to a later understanding of truth is countered by the source finding: It can be proven that the meanings that Heidegger distributed over different epochs existed in Greek from the beginning.

In his work Höhlenausgangs ( Cave Exits) (1989), Hans Blumenberg takes the cave metaphor as the starting point for a wealth of philosophical considerations, in which he repeatedly returns to Plato's parable and also discusses the history of its reception in detail. He thinks that the cave myth brings to mind the helplessness of the dialogical process, the dialogical embarrassment. This is shown in the fact that those who have ascended to knowledge and then returned to the cave encounter the bitter resistance of the cave dwellers who are determined to commit murder: Nothing is more difficult than making the offer of freedom acceptable. (...) The returnee's means are not sufficient to arouse the desire to understand the liberation, because the dialogue cannot by nature. The returnees fail because they want to do their job in a Socratic way. The Socratic dialogue , with which the interlocutor becomes involved in contradictions, must fail in the shadowy world, since there are no contradictions there, but only a series of phenomena, the prediction of which gives the cave dwellers pleasure. In the cave there is neither curiosity about the outside nor the disposition of teachability .

Classical Studies

The individual phases of the ascent from the shadow in the cave to the sight of the sun are discussed controversially in research. It is particularly about the question of whether these phases correspond to the four sections of the line in the line parable and correspond to the four types of knowledge assigned to these sections. Connected with this is the question of how the stages of acclimatization of the freed cave dweller are to be assigned to the stages of the philosophical path of knowledge and the classes of philosophical objects of knowledge. Another topic of research is the relationship between ascension in parable and Plato's educational program.

A correspondence of four phases of the cave allegory with the four types of knowledge of the allegory of lines is considered plausible by many researchers, but some see no analogy between the cave and the lower part of the line in the allegory of lines. The views of the proponents of the analogy differ in the details of the assignment of the phases of ascent to line segments (types of knowledge) and classes of objects of knowledge. One of the interpretations based on the analogy between the allegory of the cave and the allegory of lines comes from Rudolf Rehn. According to her, epistemologically, the shadowy world of the cave corresponds to the conjecture (eikasía) of the allegory of lines based on mere shadows and mirror images . The objects that cast the shadows in the allegory of the cave are assigned to the perceived material objects for truth (pístis) in the allegory of lines . The natural objects of the allegory of the cave, the images of which are the objects that cast shadows , symbolize mathematical objects to which the cognitive mode of conceptual thinking (diánoia) is assigned in the allegory of lines . The sky perception in the allegory of the cave corresponds in this scheme to the knowledge of reason (nóēsis) of the allegory of lines. Other researchers have suggested mapping schemes that deviate from this in detail.

That the sun in the allegory of the cave symbolizes the idea of ​​the good and that the liberated cave dweller actually saw this sun is unquestionably clear from Plato's text. The Platonic Socrates, however, admits that he himself did not achieve this goal. This has been interpreted differently in research. The interpretation according to which Plato considered the goal to be in principle unattainable and at best an approximation possible is not supported by the text of the parable. The Politeia gives nothing to Plato's self-assessment with regard to his own level of knowledge .

A question often discussed in research concerns the return of the liberated to the cave. It symbolizes the willingness of the philosopher to put himself at the service of the community and thus to accept great inconvenience, although a purely contemplative life would be far more enjoyable for him. The philosopher acts in this way because he wants to be just in the sense of Plato's concept of justice. Here there seems to be a contradiction to Plato's assertion that fair behavior is always in the (correctly understood) own interests of the agent. However, the philosopher cannot refuse to be part of the community, since he would commit an injustice through such behavior. In doing so, he would deprive himself of the basic virtue of justice and would impair his relationship to the world of ideas, which is his standard of orientation, and would thus cause himself serious damage. That can't be in his interest. Thus he also acts in his interest when he gives up a more comfortable life for a more difficult one. As the righteous that he is, he has no alternative to justice.

Fiction

The poet Christoph Martin Wieland wrote the poem The Nature of Things in 1752 , in which he took up the liberation motif of the allegory of the cave. His version is more like that of Aristotle than that of Plato.

In his story The Winter War in Tibet (1981), Friedrich Dürrenmatt described a cave scene that a wounded mercenary imagined before his death. It is a version of Plato's parable that agrees with him in some details, but is strongly alienated.

The Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder created a fantastic setting inspired by the allegory of the cave in his philosophical novel Das Kartengeheimnis (1990). He also addressed the allegory of the cave in his globally successful novel Sofies Welt (1991).

The Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate José Saramago published his novel A Caverna ( Die Höhle , German translation under the title Das Zentrum ) in 2000 . In it he transferred the motif of the allegory of the cave to modern times. A gigantic shopping center, a building complex, functions as a cave in the sense of the parable, which is at the same time a temple of consumption with artificial worlds of experience and a residential complex. You can spend your whole life there. During construction work, a cave is found under the center in which the mummy-like corpses of six people sit who were tied up during their lifetime as in Plato's description. Under the impression of this discovery, the protagonists of the novel leave the center.

The Swiss writer and artist Matthias AK Zimmermann describes Kryonium in his novel . The experiments of memory a computer game whose algorithms create virtual worlds from brain waves. The main character gets into a world of oblivion and darkness, which simulates the allegory of the cave. The narrator wakes up in a castle and has to play against his memory and so gradually achieve higher and higher levels of knowledge that help him to find the way out of the virtual world that holds him captive. The philosopher and media theorist Stephan Günzel emphasizes in the afterword of this novel the numerous parallels and allusions to the motif of the allegory of the cave.

Visual arts

The copper engraving “The Platonic Cave” by Jan Saenredam after the oil painting by Cornelis van Haarlem

Despite the intense reception of the allegory of the cave in modern times, it was only rarely used as a motif in the fine arts. Cornelis van Haarlem created an oil painting in 1598 that shows the scenery. Based on this painting, which has not been preserved, Jan Saenredam made the copperplate Antrum Platonicum (“The Platonic Cave”) in 1604 , which is now in the Paris National Library .

The painter Ferdinand Springer illustrated the allegory of the cave with six etchings.

Movie

Bernardo Bertolucci used the motif of Plato's allegory of the cave in his film The Great Error (1970).

Text editions and translations

  • Otto Apelt , Karl Bormann : Plato: The State. About the just (= Philosophical Library , Vol. 80). 11th, revised edition, Meiner, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-7873-0930-6 , pp. 268–274 (translation only)
  • John Burnet (Ed.): Platonis opera. Volume 4, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1902 (critical edition without translation; often reprinted).
  • Gunther Eigler (Ed.): Plato: Politeia. The state (= Plato: works in eight volumes. Volume 4). 2nd Edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-11280-6 , pp. 554-567 (critical edition; edited by Dietrich Kurz, Greek text by Émile Chambry, German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher ).
  • Rudolf Rehn (ed.): Plato's allegory of the cave. The Seventh Book of the Politeia. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-87162-062-9 (Greek text without critical apparatus with translation and explanations; introduction by Burkhard Mojsisch ).
  • Rüdiger Rufener (Ed.): Plato: The State. Politeia . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-7608-1717-3 (Greek text based on the edition by Émile Chambry without the critical apparatus, German translation by Rüdiger Rufener, introduction and explanations by Thomas Alexander Szlezák).
  • Wilhelm Wiegand: The State, Book VI-X . In: Plato: Complete Works. Volume 2, Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg no year (around 1950), pp. 205–407, here: 248–254 (translation only).

literature

Interpretation of the parable

reception

  • Wilhelm Blum: cave allegories. Theme with variations. Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 2004, ISBN 3-89528-448-3 .
  • Konrad Gaiser : The allegory of the cave . In: Konrad Gaiser: Collected writings . Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin 2004, ISBN 3-89665-188-9 , pp. 401-410.
  • Konrad Gaiser: Il paragone della caverna. Variazioni da Platone a oggi . Bibliopolis, Napoli 1985, ISBN 88-7088-126-1 .

Web links

Commons : Allegory of the Cave  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Cave allegory  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
  • The allegory of the cave (Plato's Politea, seventh book. German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher)

Remarks

  1. ^ Rudolf Rufener (translator): Plato: Der Staat , Zurich 1950, p. 545 (note 2 to p. 353).
  2. ↑ Plato, Politeia 514a-515b.
  3. ↑ See on these items Karl Bormann: Zu Platon, Politeia 514 b 8 - 515 a 3 . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 43, 1961, pp. 1–14, here: 1–4.
  4. ↑ Plato, Politeia 514b-515a.
  5. ↑ Plato, Politeia 515a-c, 516c-e.
  6. ↑ Plato, Politeia 515c-e.
  7. ↑ Plato, Politeia 515e – 516e.
  8. ↑ Plato, Politeia 516e-517a.
  9. ↑ Plato, Politeia 517a-c.
  10. ↑ Plato, Politeia 517b.
  11. ↑ Plato, Politeia 517d-518b.
  12. ↑ Plato, Politeia 518b-541b. Cf. on the turning of the whole soul Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, pp. 35f., 104; Norbert Delhey: Περιαγωγὴ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς - Remarks on the educational theory in Plato's Πολιτεία . In: Hermes 122, 1994, pp. 44-54, here: 45-47.
  13. ↑ Plato, Politeia 519c-520e; 520e: "For we only demand what is righteous from righteous."
  14. ↑ See also Rudolf Rehn (Hrsg.): Plato's cave allegory. The Seventh Book of Politeia , Mainz 2005, p. 170f .; Hugo Perls : Lexicon of Platonic Terms , Bern 1973, p. 175f.
  15. ↑ Cicero, De natura deorum 2.95 = Aristotle, fragment 838 Gigon.
  16. ↑ See Wilhelm Blum: Höhlengleichnisse , Bielefeld 2004, pp. 56–59.
  17. ↑ Maximos of Tire, Lecture 36.4.
  18. ↑ Arnobius, Adversus nationes 2: 20–24.
  19. ^ Hans Blumenberg: Höhlenausgangs , Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 327f.
  20. ^ Wilhelm Blum: Höhlengleichnisse , Bielefeld 2004, pp. 40–45, 76–86.
  21. ^ Wilhelm Blum: Höhlengleichnisse , Bielefeld 2004, p. 94f .; Konrad Gaiser: Il paragone della caverna , Napoli 1985, pp. 40f.
  22. ^ Francis Bacon, De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum 5.4 and Novum organum 1.42. See Konrad Gaiser: Il paragone della caverna , Napoli 1985, pp. 44-47.
  23. ↑ Originally a Freiburg lecture from the winter semester 1931/1932, published in 1943.
  24. ↑ Prepared in 1940, first published in 1942 as an article in the journal Geistige Tradition , published as an independent publication in 1947.
  25. ↑ Karen Gloy : Theories of Truth. An introduction , Tübingen 2004, pp. 76–92. Cf. Werner Beierwaltes : Epekeina. A note on Heidegger's reception of Plato . In: Werner Beierwaltes: footnotes to Plato , Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 371–388.
  26. ↑ Hans Blumenberg: Höhlenausgangs , Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 87-89.
  27. ^ Hans Blumenberg: Höhlenausgangs , Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 149.
  28. ↑ For the connection with the educational program, see the overview by Michael Erler : Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Hrsg.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie . Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, pp. 506–509.
  29. ↑ See also Michael Erler: Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Hrsg.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, pp. 400, 402; Wilhelm Blum: cave parables , Bielefeld 2004, pp. 51–53; Oswald Utermöhlen: The importance of the theory of ideas for the Platonic Politeia , Heidelberg 1967, pp. 33–51, 69, 78; Christoph Quarch : Sein und Seele , Münster 1998, pp. 58–60; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The allegory of the cave (Book VII 514a – 521b and 539d – 541b) . In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Platon: Politeia , 3rd edition, Berlin 2011, pp. 155–173, here: 160–162; Hans Lier: On the structure of the Platonic allegory of the cave . In: Hermes 99, 1971, pp. 209-216; John Malcolm: The Line and the Cave . In: Phronesis 7, 1962, pp. 38-45; John S. Morrison: Two Unresolved Difficulties in the Line and the Cave . In: Phronesis 22, 1977, pp. 212-231; Ronald Godfrey Tanner: ΔΙΑΝΟΙΑ and Plato's Cave . In: The Classical Quarterly 20, 1970, pp. 81-91; Vassilis Karasmanis: Plato's Republic: The Line and the Cave . In: Apeiron Vol. 21 No. 3, 1988, pp. 147-171; Karl Bormann: On Plato, Politeia 514 b 8 - 515 a 3 . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 43, 1961, pp. 1–14, here: 5–14; Miguel A. Lizano-Ordovás: 'Eikasia' and 'Pistis' in Plato's allegory of the cave . In: Journal for Philosophical Research 49, 1995, pp. 378–397.
  30. ↑ Rudolf Rehn: Sun, line and cave allegory . In: Christoph Horn u. a. (Ed.): Platon-Handbuch , Stuttgart 2009, pp. 330–334, here: 333.
  31. ↑ See, for example, the assignments by Oswald Utermöhlen: The importance of the theory of ideas for the Platonic Politeia , Heidelberg 1967, pp. 42–51, 69, Thomas Alexander Szlezák: Das Höhlengleichnis (Book VII 514a – 521b and 539d – 541b) . In: Otfried Höffe (ed.): Platon: Politeia , 3rd edition, Berlin 2011, pp. 155–173, here: 160–162 and Colin Strang: Plato's Analogy of the Cave . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4, 1986, pp. 19–34. For the assignment of phases of ascent and classes of the objects of knowledge see also John RS Wilson: The Contents of the Cave . In: Roger A. Shiner, John King-Farlow (Eds.): New Essays on Plato and the Pre-Socratics , Guelph 1976, pp. 117-127.
  32. ↑ Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The allegory of the cave (Book VII 514a – 521b and 539d – 541b) . In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Platon: Politeia , 3rd edition, Berlin 2011, pp. 155–173, here: 165f.
  33. ↑ See Richard Kraut: Return to the Cave: Republic 519-521 . In: Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 7, 1991, pp. 43-61.
  34. ↑ Christoph Martin Wieland: The nature of things 1,87–164, printed in: Christoph Martin Wieland: Gesammelte Schriften , 1st department: Works , Vol. 1 (1,2): Poetic youth works , published by Fritz Homeyer, Hildesheim 1986 (Reprint of the Berlin 1909 edition), pp. 5–128, here: 17–19.
  35. ^ Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The Winter War in Tibet . In: Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Gesammelte Werke , edited by Franz Josef Görtz, Volume 6, Zurich 1988, pp. 172–178.
  36. ↑ José Saramago: Das Zentrum , Munich 2014, pp. 357–396.
  37. ↑ Stephan Günzel : Afterword (pp. 317-324). In: cryonium. The experiments of memory . Kulturverlag Kadmos, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86599-444-8
  38. ^ Jean Nicolas Grou (translator): Plato: Le mythe de la caverne , Paris 1948 (contains the six etchings).
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