Texto abreviado, en inglés, do Mito da Caverna, da obra "República" de Platón (Atenas, ss. V - IV aC). Preparado polo Departamento de Filosofía do IES Pedro Floriani de Redondela para a materia de Filosofía Bilingüe de 4º ESO, 2016-17

1. PLATO’S
ALLEGORY
OF THE CAVE

2. 1
Imprisonment in the cave

3. Socrates begins by asking
Glaucon to imagine a cave where
people have been imprisoned
from childhood. They are chained
and their legs and necks are fixed,
looking at the wall in front of them.

4. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and
between the fire and the prisoners
is a raised path with a low wall,
behind which people walk carrying
objects or puppets. The objects
they carry cast shadows upon the
wall in front of them. The sounds
of the people talking echo off the
shadowed wall, and the prisoners
falsely believe these sounds come
from the shadows.

5. 2
Departure from the cave

6. One prisoner is freed. He looks
around and sees the fire. The light
hurts his eyes and he can’t see
the objects casting the shadows. If
someone told him that what he is
seeing is not real but only another
version of reality, he would not
believe it.

7. In his pain, he turns away and
runs back to the shadows, and he
believes that these are clearer
than the objects, the puppets and
the fire.

8. Now, someone forces him up
along a really difficult way, out into
the light of the sun. He’s angry
and in pain. The sunlight is an
allegory of the new reality and
knowledge that the freed prisoner
is experiencing.

9. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light
of the sun. First he can only see
shadows. Gradually he can see
the reflections of people and
things in water and then later see
the people and things themselves.
Then he looks at the stars and
moon at night until finally he can
look upon the sun itself.

10. 3
Return to the cave

11. The freed prisoner thinks that the
real world was superior to the
world he experienced in the cave
He wants to bring his fellows out
of the cave and into the sunlight.

12. But he’s become accustomed to
the sunlight and can’t see the
shadows clearly. The prisoners
think that the journey out of the
cave has blinded him and that
they shouldn’t go outside.

13. Socrates concludes that the
prisoners, if they were able, would
therefore reach out and kill
anyone who attempted to drag
them out of the cave.