*The Cave * -- JC's Existentialism/Philosophy Club

WARNING: This thread may cause thinking.

I find existentialism to be a style of most interest because it questions reality and our perception on the world. Philsophy is a thing that seems to accompany existentialism because they have, in a way, similiar goals -- to think about and try to understand our lives.

I find these topics worthy of discussion in this newly created Amphitheater.

So go right ahead. Discuss!


So I'll start.

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Plato's Cave Allegory (I think it's Book VII of [i]The Republic[/i]) is a theme in some of the existentialist works. Here's an excerpt for those who haven't read it:

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[i]Is a resident of the cave (a prisoner, as it were) likely to want to make the ascent to the outer world? Why or why not? What does the sun symbolize in the allegory? And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:--Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.[/i]
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If you want to read the rest, a simple search for "Plato's Cave Allegory" would give you the entire text. :)

In movies such as [i]The Truman Show[/i] and [i]The Matrix[/i] the idea of Plato's Cave is used. In both movies, a false reality is created for prisoners. In the [i]Truman Show[/i], the false reality is Seahaven and the prisoner is Truman. In [i]The Matrix[/i], the prisoners are most of humanity and the false reality is Earth in 1999. Both movies parallels Plato's Cave's prisoners in that the characters in the constructed reality believe that the "fake world" they live in is actually real.

I would go more into detail, but not today. :p

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I love that allegory. Great stuff. Some of my favorite novels we read in my English class this year dealt a great deal in existentialist philosophies. The idea that there is no internal control of self is something I've always found interesting. It was particularly nice to see some the sheltered individuals in my class have their eyes open to a world they hadn't even thought of.

I absolutely loved Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky because of this very same factor. Raskolnikov is so out there, so gone, but yet the reader finds him/herself relating to him, somehow. Alienation and true suffering provide crucial aspects to his development, furthered evermore by existentialism as he broods over his concepts of nihilism and the traditional morals of Christianity. Great stuff.

Ah, I could go on and on. Camus is a brilliant author. I fell in love with The Plague. Great work. The Stranger as well is magnificent. I love the first paragraph. The idea presented here that man is born to die rattles the mind. I'm still pretty new to the concept but am enthralled by it... So I'd like to hear what you guys have to say on the issue.

 

It was Plato's Cave Allegory that sparked my interest in philosophy and existentialism. It's presented in an interesting manner for the allegory is really a discussion between two people (though the other person is usually a "yes-man" )

But I find it really interesting to contemplate what the prisoners would think of the real world if they are to ever escape the cave.

I started to read some Nietzsche, but I that got way to confusing for me.

A really fun book to read, if you're into Simpsons and philosophy is The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (This is not an endorsement to purchase from amazon, just a link to show you the book info )

 

Another fine work of existentialism is Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.

"Man is condemned to be free." - Joseph Conrad

 

The point of Plato's cave allegory was to show that there are absolute forms, and that man is only capable of seeing aspects of them unless he has the courage to educate himself (leave the cave). The existentialists abhor the notion of absolute truths, preferring to think that a man cannot know anything outside of his own experiences. How do you reconcile these two very different interpretations of knowledge?

 

i think there is a certain level on which plato and the existentialists agree. they would both say that the majority of people live in a false reality. what composes the reality of course is entirely opposite. for plato, the majority of people who are unmotivated and thus remain uneducated, "the bronze" as he would call them, live in a reality that is merely a shadow or reflection of the forms... of absolute knowledge. but this belief creates the very "mythology" that makes up the false reality for the existentialist. the whole tradition of western idealism and the belief in absolutes, as well as the tradition of metaphysics is set into doubt by existentialism, the whole reliance on reason and the basic premise of philosophy is put into question.

so, from the point of view of the existentialist, i think the two points of view cannot be reconciled, and the very endeavor to do so would be merely indicative of a certain set of cultural assumptions brought about by a certain combination of experiences, or succession of choices.

however, for the existentialist there is still one absolute. the cartesian "I", the ego is still there in some form. we find ourselves in the world, we find ourselves "thrown", already choosing... already experiencing. for the existentialist, the basic premise of descartes might be changed to "i choose therefore i am" but the premise is still there and it is still an absolute.

is any of this making sense?

 

i think there is a certain level on which plato and the existentialists agree. they would both say that the majority of people live in a false reality. what composes the reality of course is entirely opposite. for plato, the majority of people who are unmotivated and thus remain uneducated

That statement makes perfect sense to me.

 

go into your cave and find your power animal...

A walrus!?

 

go into your cave and find your power animal...

A walrus!?

Wah? ?

 

Fight Club joke.

I was wondering when you would show up, deltron_zero. One of the major differences between Plato and the existentialists, is that the existentialists refuse to accept the notion that there is anything beyond themselves. As you said their only absolute is "I". These are the people that Plato feels are perpetually chained and trapped in the cave, experiencing life only as a pale shadow of what it truly is because they are unwilling or unable to see beyond themselves and embrace the true nature of the universe.

 

exactly! and for the existentialist, it is precisley the choice to leave the cave, to seek the absolute that would define the person. for the existentialist, that will to believe is not necessarily a bad thing but if the philosopher lacks a certain self-awareness, the awareness that one is choosing and that these choices in a sense create our realities, our values, our sense of what is important, than it is the philosopher who is truly in the cave.

now that was a run-on sentence!

 

The self awareness that can only come from the gift of personal experience.

 

Of course you have to be aware of yourself, but that does not mean that you are incapable of knowing about things that are not part of you.

 

yes, but everything you know, you know only as it relates to you, as it is experienced by you. what would it mean to truly know the pure forms?

 

It would mean understand the universe as it is not just as we see it. True knowledge, not the shadow of knowledge, which we condemn ourselves to if we do not look outside of our own perceptions. What do you gain by limiting yourself in this manner? You can know things in ways other than how it relates to you. You just have to look beyond your initial reactions and use reason to understand them.

 

but notice the language you are using, you have to get beyond your initial reactions, beyond mere perception... by using reason. this too is a choice that originates with a subject and sets into motion a certain set of experiences, an evolution of mental phenomena. and like all choices, this choice also limits. why rely on reason, what is this choice predicated upon?

plato liked to use the examples of mathematics and logic to show there is some sort of universal, absolute order to the universe. and yes reason is a great tool in the realms of rhetoric and calculus, but can it ever really show us the purest form of beauty, of love?

this is where the argument falls apart, once we are back in the spheres of thought that are "traditionally" thought of as subjective, and it goes in circles. is there an absolute, objective way to use reason? are we all endowed with the same faculties of logical thinking. plato would say no, so the pure forms are only available to the few, to the philosopher, and it is the philosopher's responsibility to come back from his state of meditative bliss to teach the "bronze". if reason is really universal and absolute, how can it be so exclusive?

 

Helloooo boyos! Tis I, your friendly neighborhood philosopher here, PARANOIDANI-DROID!

Just a quick question, is this thread/club limeted to just the existential and platonic schools of thinking?

Ah, I could go on and on. Camus is a brilliant author. I fell in love with The Plague. Great work.

I hear ya pal, though i've yet to read The Plague. I've read pretty much all of his other works including the essays and short stories but have yet to read this one. I was kind of hesitent at first because 1) it's longer than most of his stuff and I didn't feel like the lengthy read during my Camus stage 2) it wasn't as heavily recommended to me as were The Fall of The Stranger and 3) the blurb on the back cover didn't capture my interest. Yet, I might look into it after all, the way you carry on about it.

~PAd

 

I have always believed that reason is one of the ways one can escape the cave. Reason allows one to detach themselves from the corporal world and see "the truth". With reason, one can figure that the shadows are not real and that there exists a world beyond the cave. Just as "reason" has allowed physicist to theorize there being dimensions outside our own. A world beyond what we can see.

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:p I'm new to this philosophy stuff, but it's quite interesting.

EDIT: Additional text in italics.

 

hey, i never said that reason isn't a very valuable tool. without reason, we couldn't even be having this discourse and that is something that every existentialist would have to admit. but the existentialist and most modern philosophers after kant would say that reason can only take you so far, and using reason to go from concrete human experience to universals and absolutes seems like abstraction.

reason has lost its place in metaphysics, as kierkegaard would say, the infinite cannot be reconciled in the finite. ultimately, the belief in any sort of absolute or eternal truth represents a sort of leap of faith, reason alone can't get us there.

 

Forgive me from jumping in the discussion like this...

Indeed reason can only show us so much. If our only mean of understanding reality was reason we would not have gotten this far. Even in mathematics, the science of reason for excelency, this comes into view. A triangule is a tree-sided geometric figure whose internal angles always measure 180º degrees, yet if we draw a triangule on earth the somatory of it's angles won't be that value.

On the other hand, experience alone does not give us much to learn if we don't have the means to remember, understand, and use the knowledge gained in the future. I believe Piaget's theory on how knowledge is gained explains it better than any other (at least that I have read so far).

I probably did wrong in using a triangle as an exemple, as maths isn't my strong, but I hope it didn't ruin my idea too much.

As for if there's more than what we know and see, as Plato thought, there may well be. The cave allegory is one of my favorites. Unfortunatly, nowadays as it was already the case in Plato's time, there are many who promise to know the way out, when in fact they only know where other fires and chains are...

 

anya Skywalker, Quote:

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If our only mean of understanding reality was reason we would not have gotten this far.
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I'll have to agree with this statement.

If there was only reason and nothing else (emotion, experience, etc.), we won't be Human and will still be prisoners of that Platonic caves. Reason can be both the key and the lock. It takes a combination of all that makes us Human to be freed from the cave. Some of the people that still percieve the shadows and reality are people that are blinded by excessive reason and uses [i]only[/i] reason to see the world.

I hope that was a valid argument. [face_blush]

 

perhaps what is really needed to leave the cave is simply the choice to do so, the choice to live the examined life. do you think that plato and existentialism would agree to some extent on this point?

 

why rely on reason, what is this choice predicated upon?
What else is there to rely on? Should I go through life just doing whatever I feel like doing allowing my actions to be determined by whatever impulse strikes?

but can it [reason]ever really show us the purest form of beauty, of love?
Yes, it can. There is something beautiful about the order to the universe, and being able to discover how it all works is an exhilarating experience.

is there an absolute, objective way to use reason? are we all endowed with the same faculties of logical thinking. Plato would say no, so the pure forms are only available to the few, to the philosopher, and it is the philosopher's responsibility to come back from his state of meditative bliss to teach the "bronze". if reason is really universal and absolute, how can it be so exclusive?
Everyone has the capacity for reason and the potential to become a philosopher if they want to do it. Plato is just acknowledging the fact that most choose not to do so, and by making this choice, stay trapped in their world of shadows.

Greetings,ParanoidAni-droid. I thought you would be in here as well.

I have always believed that reason is one of the ways one can escape the cave.
It is the only way to escape the cave.

reason has lost its place in metaphysics, as kierkegaard would say, the infinite cannot be reconciled in the finite. ultimately, the belief in any sort of absolute or eternal truth represents a sort of leap of faith, reason alone can't get us there.
There is always a place for reason in philosophy. To look at the universe rationally and conclude that there are absolutes is a logical conclusion based on the knowledge that we have; it does not require a blind leap of faith.

A triangule is a tree-sided geometric figure whose internal angles always measure 180º degrees, yet if we draw a triangule on earth the somatory of it's angles won't be that value.
By definition, then, you have not drawn a triangle. Where is the contradiction?

We can agree that that is the fist step,deltron_zero. As Plato's mentor, Socrates, said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

 

What else is there to rely on? Should I go through life just doing whatever I feel like doing allowing my actions to be determined by whatever impulse strikes?

if you did, perhaps you would be what nietzsche calls the "dyonisian spirit"

something that he thinks was basically crushed by the reliance on reason, and even more so later by christian morality. but no, this is not what i'm advocating, although it might represent a very radical form freedom it wouldn't be a very intellectually fulfilling existence. however i do agree with nietzsche and stirner when they say that one shouldn't rely exclusively on any one aspect of experience. reason is exalted in the western tradition to the point where the emotions and matters of the body... our very physicality has basically been forgotten.

Yes, it can. There is something beautiful about the order to the universe, and being able to discover how it all works is an exhilarating experience.

i totally agree, but still we are nowhere near understanding "how it all works" scientifically, how can we claim to understand a metaphysical underlying reality such as the "pure forms"?

Everyone has the capacity for reason and the potential to become a philosopher if they want to do it. Plato is just acknowledging the fact that most choose not to do so, and by making this choice, stay trapped in their world of shadows.

this is true to an extent, but plato does make a distinction here. he is aware of some sort of genetic predisposition towards wisdom or greatness, although of course he doesn't call it that. he does think that great thinkers or great leaders will pass on these traits to the following generations, this is why in the republic he says that the philosophers should breed with people of like-mind, the guardians should breed with guardians, etc. and yes, if you've read your plato you know that the philosopher king can be a woman... very much ahead of his time. but yes, reason in its most basic form is available to even the most uneducated slave boy as he shows so eloquently in the "meno". (at least i think it was the meno)

There is always a place for reason in philosophy. To look at the universe rationally and conclude that there are absolutes is a logical conclusion based on the knowledge that we have; it does not require a blind leap of faith.

of course there is always a place for reason in philosophy! but there is still a great abyss between the finite and the infinite. to conclude that there are abosolutes is a logical conclusion? please, show me the logical proof for this, you might actually make me religious.

 

Okay, I think it's time for me to dumb down this thread.

Here's an idiot-proof summary of every religious, social, and philosophical school of thought:

Capitalism: He who dies with the most toys wins.

Hare Krishna: He who plays with the most toys wins.

Catholicism: He who denies himself the most toys wins.

Anglican: They were our toys first.

Greek Orthodox: No, they were OURS first.

Polytheism: There are many toy makers.

Evolutionism: The toys made themselves.

Baptist: Once played, always played.

Church of Christ Scientist: We are the toys.

Communism: Everyone gets the same number of toys and you go straight to hell if we catch you selling yours.

Amish: Toys with batteries are surely a sin.

Taoism: The doll is as important as the dump truck.

Hedonism: To heck with the rulebook. Let?s play!

Hinduism: He who plays with bags of plastic farm animals loses.

7th Day Adventist: He who plays with his toys on Saturday loses.

Jehovah?s Witnesses: He who sells the most toys door-to-door wins.

Pentecostalism: He whose toys can talk wins.

Existentialism: Toys are a figment of your imagination.

Confucianism: Once a toy is dipped in the water it is no longer dry.

Non-denominationalism: We don?t care where the toys came from, let?s just play with them.

Atheism: There is no toy maker.

Agnosticism: It is not possible to know whether toys make a bit of difference.

Mormonism: Every boy can have as many toys as he wants.

Voodoo: Let me borrow that doll for a second.

Apathy: Toys? Why do I need toys?

Judaism: Toy vey!

Church of Scientology: Toys ?R? Us.