PLATO’S CAVE – A MYTH OR AN ALLEGORY?

Abstract

Interpretations of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave differ based on whether interpreters favor it as a myth or as an allegory. In literature, both interpretations are almost equally chosen, depending on the interpreter’s perspective. To understand the differences in naming, we will first use the method of refutation, aiming to challenge both possible interpretations. Plato’s cave is most appropriately described as an image expressed in words, eidola legomena, rather than a myth or an allegory. Visual experience in Plato is fundamentally passive and enervating, except in the case of the icon. It is, like philosophical eros, active in ascending from one register to another, from the bodily to the non-bodily, from the sensory to the ideational. Plato’s strategy is to produce an effect similar to eros with his image in words, as he combines myth and allegory to stimulate the listeners to also venture from the visible to the invisible.