Simone, Plato, and the Cave

[Nick_A]

I believe that the primary misconception of the atheist is in not realizing he is in Plato's cave which is why they believe that logic and reason reveals reality. The essence of religion asserts in one way or another that we are victims of illusion; psychologiclly asleep to objective reality. If this is so, obviously logic is of little value for a sleeping person. The essence of religion Religion reveals the truth no ones ego wants to confront; that they are nothing and need to awaken. This goes over like a lead balloon.

Even though the human condition as it expresses itself in the cycles of life between war and peace is an obvious absurdity, we refuse to accept the reality that there is something essentially wrong with how we try to understand it. Once we see that we are asleep in Plato's cave, the obvious absurdity of the contradictory results of the collective human condition make perfect sense and also suggest how a person can awaken from this madness. I cannot see how the atheist can come to accept being in Plato's cave and not realizing the limitations of logic and associative thought.

Plato's Cave

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html

My concern for this thread is the spiritual aspect though the whole allegory is extraordinary on several levels. But briefly as I understand it, the idea is that our conceptions of reality are only shadows and our fascination with them deny the higher reality and source of the shadows. It is very difficult for us to have a change of mind that allows for the change of direction that reveals this source represented by the sun that provides the help to escape the cave. It appears to blind us to the realities we are accustomed to. But shortly this new perception would reveal how naive former perceptions were since they were only shadows. So basically Plato is describing the ascent and decent of the soul into the levels of being represented by existence inside the cave and outside the cave.

[Socrates] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

Now, coming out of the sun and not fully accustomed again to living in darkness, a person having experienced the light wants to share even though unsteady but is confronted with experts that at best only confuse everything and at worst kill him. Thank goodness we haven't learned how to shoot guns through monitors or I'd be in trouble.

[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

The question now becomes the value of the intellect in this matter of awakened sight. What knowledge can a sleeping man have? Yet unaware of our condition we create experts by the boatload who, while psychologically asleep, claim to explain everything with this "reason" of theirs.

This person who has experienced the light has the unenviable task of trying to relate the common sense of it to all these experts and their followers. You think Sisyphus had it tough? Not even boulders can offer resistance like an expert with his heels dug in.

So for the sake of non-experts with an inner knowing that there is something more than shadows, how are they helped by the one who now knows? Of course there is education but of what kind?

So lets get Simone Weil's take on this since there are several interpretations.

The cave is the world and what binds us to its reflections is our imagination that takes the place of attention explained on the left of the page. Without attention we lose our awareness of the unchanging truths since the source of attention itself is God that reaches us on earth from consciousness at the level of the sun.

Captivation with life on earth for the soul keeps it in prison so intelligence as normally defined is really only a measurement of prison cell size:

"The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell." Simone Weil

I'll draw from two pages on the following site that give a summary of her views:

http://rivertext.com/weil4.html

The cave is the world and what binds us to its reflections is our imagination that takes the place of attention explained on the left of the page. Without attention we lose our awareness of the unchanging truths since the source of attention itself is God that reaches us on earth from consciousness at the level of the sun.

Captivation with life on earth for the soul keeps it in prison so intelligence as normally defined is really only a measurement of prison cell size:
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.


Clicking over to the next page reveals what I believe should be the primary goal of education:

Education means turning the soul in the direction in which it should look, of delivering the soul from the passions.

This would allow a person to think not only more clearly but to allow inner morality to become the aspect of thought necessary for it to reflect a human perspective.

Experts and "results" oriented fixations not to mention the lack of teachers with understanding would never allow for it publicly so the good of education will only come from private ventures that understand its value

Plato's morality is: Do not make the worst possible mistake of deceiving yourself. We know that we are acting correctly when the power of thinking is not hindered by what we are doing. To do only those things which one can think clearly, and not to do those things which force the mind to have unclear thoughts about what one is doing. That is the whole of Plato's morality.

Now the following quotation by Nietzsche begins to make sense:


"

How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against the enemy."

It's true because what we are doing excludes impartial thought. Right and wrong can make anything appear good or bad. Common sense has nothing to do with it.

Intelligence offends by its very nature, thinking annoys the people in the cave.

Now it appears so absurd that it must be true. The person having had this intense inner religious experience and what is collectively lost through our obsession with shadows must return to shadowland as the human thing to do in response to the human condition.

The wise have to return to the cave, and act there. One has to reach the stage where power is in the hands of those who refuse it, and not of those whose ambition it is to possess it.

For the sake of helping the situation, a person so enlightened must refuse power so as to attain a quality of "being" and help others who feel a similar calling.

I maintain that one real person of being, a true individual, does more good in the realistic unchanging sense through the emphasis on awakening than a thousand experts reciting platitudes about how we are all one. The great beast wants everything as it is. You can imagine what ever you want but the bottom line for the beast must continue to be business as usual and the cycles of war and peace. The efforts of such individuals that encourage awakening will inspire the deepest growls from this beast. Their task is far from pleasant and I humbly acknowledge all those like them of which Simone Weil was one.

[Furrowed Brow]

But briefly as I understand it, the idea is that our conceptions of reality are only shadows and our fascination with them deny the higher reality and source of the shadows.

The sources of the shadows are the forms. What the inhabitants of the cave might see as good is but a shadow of the original form - Good. Not only is this a theory of knowledge it is an ontological theory. To know anything at all we exist in a twilight world dimly aware of the pure form that exists beyond our perception or reality.

But why invoke such an ontology at all:- What problems does it solve? How coherent it is? And how profligate is its ontology? On all three counts Plato’s ontology does not stand up to scrutiny - or at least not the kind od scrutiny that impresses this atheist.

When I read Plato’s cave I want to scream wake up!

We sit on chairs, there is not a form CHAIR, of which the chair I perceive myself to be sitting on, and the one you are sitting on, are but the shadow of. Even if you feel there is a phenomenolgical problem I.e. there is a gap between the reality of stuff as it is, and how we perceive that stuff (like Kant), there is no reason to invoke the cave or Plato’s forms. There is absolutely no need to invoke a higher reality.

[Nick_A]

"Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head." Chesterton

F B

But why invoke such an ontology at all:- What problems does it solve? How coherent it is? And how profligate is its ontology? On all three counts Plato’s ontology does not stand up to scrutiny - or at least not the kind od scrutiny that impresses this atheist.

What is a person to do when he sees that life doesn't make sense and feels the need for meaning and purpose not provided by secular life? Explaining the problem of the absence of meaning and purpose and the alternative to the blind acceptance of chaos is the purpose it serves.

Since you don't "need" it, it is hard to explain the problem it solves. Simone Weil is useful here because her need was pure. She wrote:

"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
-- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©

Some understand this and others don't. some know what she means by: "It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good."

Plato's cave explains the problem. We are as we are because we are asleep to reality and this sleep is maintained primarily from the affects of societal conditioning.

Where society should provide the means for helping people to awaken, it has become "The Great Beast" keeping man asleep to serve it.

Most people today side with you. My concern goes out to this minority of young people that sense the truth but are unfortunately in public education surrounded by all this secularism. Somehow they must become aware that there is a common sense alternative to this madness before sinking into oblivion. I hope to be part of whatever helps make alternatives known for those who need them.

[Furrowed Brow]

What is a person to do when he sees that life doesn't make sense and feels the need for meaning and purpose not provided by secular life?

Pick out the path that makes most sense. Accept what you feel. Life is what it is - whether we ever get to make sense of it on a grand scale - accept the here, the now, and the texture of life as it is lived. That is where meaning is found.

Explaining the problem of the absence of meaning and purpose and the alternative to the blind acceptance of chaos is the purpose it serves.

Jump in the argument here. You move from feeling the need for a meaning and purpose not provided by secular life to the absence of meaning and purpose. Some of us still find meaning and purpose. We find it in the minutia and the grain of life not the cosmic. Admittedly what we have found does not suit the theist’s taste buds.

“blind acceptance” - hmm.

Since you don't "need" it, it is hard to explain the problem it solves.

I think you are saying I don’t need meaning and purpose. What I’m saying is that atheism requires a delicate palate. Meaning and purpose is not drawn in primary colours. It is not found in grand cosmic ontologies.

It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited

Pretty much

Simone Weil and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns /

Well it will not satisfy some, maybe many….

perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good...

This bit is poetic but nonsense. What does it even mean to say we have a “perpetual desire”. Okay we can stick those two words together, but what are they really saying? And a desire for an infinite and perfect good? Argh! This kind of writing makes me want to grind my teeth. It is to philosophical insight as the blurb on the back of a DVD box is to critical thought.

So here I think we reach one particular problem. I can see you are rather taken with Simon W, but my critical faculties scream bogus philosophy and empty words. Now I suspect you might think about putting my resistance down to already rejecting anything higher, but I say talk of anything higher consists of exactly this kind of use of language. Those who are impressed with it I suspect havie a radically a different critical appreciation of what counts as meaningful.

Some understand this and others don't.

I don’t. I mean I really don’t. What does...

the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good...

...really mean. A desire that never stops. One you have when you wake, when you sleep, when you eat, all moments of the day for all of your life. Or does it mean that it is self causing - a perpetual desire akin to perpetual energy. And what does “infinite good” mean. I know there are an infinite number of natural numbers. But infinite good? How can we desire anything infinite? You can choose to answer these question or not. My point here is that these words when put together in the order chosen by Weil make no sense and point to nothing meaningful. In the same way “infinite wish”, “infinite sneeze”, “infinite good taste”, stick words next to each other that taken together are meaningless.

If the basic point is that to be human means we sometime feel there should be something more than the finite reality we engage with, then fine that can be admitted. I want to be richer than I am too, plus have my hair back. But I don’t invoke an infinite ontology by which by receding hair line is but a shadow of the form of a full set of hair. Okay that example is deliberately facetious, but the logic and sense of the kind of ontology being invoke here is the same.

Plato's cave explains the problem.

I’m down to my gums. Plato’s cave is a metaphor, it is a picture, that attempts to invoke a higher ontology as the source of the meaning of our concepts.

We are as we are because we are asleep to reality and this sleep is maintained primarily from the affects of societal conditioning.

In a different argument and for different reason I could see myself agreeing with this sentence. But whilst we are talking about the origin and limits of our concepts Platonism is as much use as a metaphor about a cave.

Most people today side with you.

Actually I don’t think they do. I suspect most people have not put much study into philosophy of language. If asked to venture how words and concepts have meaning I’d wager most would stumble upon some form of Platonism….because it has a superficial attraction. it’s a bit like alchemy to science. A discipline drawn on the ontology of Plato’s student Aristotle.

[Nick_A]

Hi FB

I trust the day so far is treating you well. I have to thank you at this time for being civil rather than indulging in forms of nastiness that all too often pervades discussion.

Pick out the path that makes most sense. Accept what you feel. Life is what it is - whether we ever get to make sense of it on a grand scale - accept the here, the now, and the texture of life as it is lived. That is where meaning is found.

True, and this is why I define God as "meaning." Meaning is a relative term and exists for us on different levels . The highest for us is our God. The advantage here for me is that when there is no more conception of meaning, (idolatry) I become more open to the direction leading to the source of meaning itself.

Jump in the argument here. You move from feeling the need for a meaning and purpose not provided by secular life to the absence of meaning and purpose. Some of us still find meaning and purpose. We find it in the minutia and the grain of life not the cosmic. Admittedly what we have found does not suit the theist’s taste buds.

This is also hard top explain. Along with the idea that meaning is relative, I've come to experience that at some point I am empty. To acquire higher meaning requires me to accept the loss of meaning. In the Bible this idea is expressed as the "Pearl of Great Price" where a person sells all they have (meaning) in order to acquire it (higher meaning) It really is a most profound psychological concept.

I think you are saying I don’t need meaning and purpose. What I’m saying is that atheism requires a delicate palate. Meaning and purpose is not drawn in primary colours. It is not found in grand cosmic ontologies.

No. I am saying that for the atheist meaning supplied by the earth is sufficient for the need for meaning.

This bit is poetic but nonsense. What does it even mean to say we have a “perpetual desire”. Okay we can stick those two words together, but what are they really saying? And a desire for an infinite and perfect good? Argh! This kind of writing makes me want to grind my teeth. It is to philosophical insight as the blurb on the back of a DVD box is to critical thought.

So here I think we reach one particular problem. I can see you are rather taken with Simon W, but my critical faculties scream bogus philosophy and empty words. Now I suspect you might think about putting my resistance down to already rejecting anything higher, but I say talk of anything higher consists of exactly this kind of use of language. Those who are impressed with it I suspect havie a radically a different critical appreciation of what counts as meaningful.

First let me say that Simone Weil was not a dreamer. She studied critical thinking with Emile Chartier in France. If she indulged in the usual New Age bogus philosophy, the highly regarded philosopher Albert Camus would not have written:

"Simone Weil, I still know this now, is the only great mind of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing.
For my part, I would be satisfied if one could say that in my place, with the humble means at my disposal, I served to make known and disseminate her work whose full impact we have yet to measure."

You rightly question when she puts the results of the combination of her critical thought with inner experience into language describing the essence of the cave analogy. What is meant by "the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good..."

Also hard to explain. In order to clarify it as I understand I will turn to page 59 of Jacob Needleman's wonderful book "Lost Christianity"

Acornology

I began my lecture that morning from just this point. There is an innate element in human nature, I argued that can grow and develop only through impressions of truth received in the organism like a special nourishing energy. To this innate element I gave a name - perhaps not a very good name - the "higher unconscious." My aim was to draw an extremely sharp distinction between the unconscious that Freud had identified and the unconscious referred to (though not by that name) in the Christian tradition.

Imagine, I said, that you are a scientist and you have before you the object known as the acorn. Let us further imagine that you have never before seen such an object and that you certainly do not know that it can grow into an oak. You carefully observe these acorns day after day and soon you notice that after a while they crack open and die. Pity! How to improve the acorn? So that it will live longer. You make careful, exquisitely precise chemical analyses of the material inside the acorn and, after much effort, you succeed in isolating the substance that controls the condition of the shell. Lo and behold, you are now in the position to produce acorns which will last far longer than the others, acorns whose shells will perhaps never crack. Beautiful!

The question before us, therefore, is whether or not modern psychology is only a version of acornology.

This is it in a nutshell. (pun intended) Plato's cave analogy refers to the domination of our personality on our essential qualities. This domination inhibits the growth of what makes us uniquely human. One of these qualities is the seed of the human soul that is drawn to the infinite and perfect good. Society seeks to strengthen our personality. Prof. Needleman questions the relationship between our personality and our essence we are born with -- the acorn shell and the kernel of life within that has the chance to be an oak when it no longer needs the shell.

"the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good..." is experienced the more one experiences that they are more than just a personality reacting in accordance with the human condition described as Plato's cave where the shell is king at the expense of the living kernel of life within it.

Actually I don’t think they do. I suspect most people have not put much study into philosophy of language. If asked to venture how words and concepts have meaning I’d wager most would stumble upon some form of Platonism….because it has a superficial attraction. it’s a bit like alchemy to science. A discipline drawn on the ontology of Plato’s student Aristotle.

Do you believe we are capable of universal language that would allow people in Plato's cave to understand one another? I would suggest that it cannot be done under such limitiations but the need for such communication is the real purpose of art as distinct from expression.