Episode 289: Shadows on the Wall (Plato's Cave Pt. 1)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] You know, anything too hard in life is not worth doing. Remember that. Okay. Like snowboarding or martial arts, you know? Yeah. Pottery. Right. Or math. Right. You know, you're a good man, and if you're not immediately good at something, why do it? The great Oz has spoken!

[00:00:36] I'm a very good man. Good brains that you have. Anybody can have a brain. Very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, plugged

[00:01:25] in as you are to politics and DC culture, I'm sure by now you know that Trump has selected your boy, J.D. Vance, to be his vice president. But what you may not know is that J.D. Vance

[00:01:39] was a philosophy major at Ohio State. Are we one step closer to a society ruled by philosopher kings? I had no idea. Obviously, yes. Like, obviously. I mean, doesn't mean there's not like eight million steps to go.

[00:01:56] I mean, well, I mean, you know, after November there really is just one. There's just a one step. Yeah. So in the second segment, speaking of philosopher kings, Plato's cave, Plato's theory

[00:02:11] of the forms as it's presented in The Republic, and yeah, it's the start of a new mini-series. There'll be just things that we often reference without actually discussing and talking about and maybe explaining to readers who might be unfamiliar with these things.

[00:02:29] Or in my case, the things that I reference that I'm not familiar with. If our listeners have any ideas, if they've heard us say something over and over again, we never explain it.

[00:02:38] Like tell us. Some of you have told us that before, and that's, I think, the source of this idea. It finally got through to us after all these years. You know? All right. What are we doing for the opening? This was your idea.

[00:02:50] Yeah. So I thought maybe, just maybe we're old enough, we're weathered enough in our careers that we have accumulated some wisdom about ourselves or about just the good. And I thought, I was curious about you actually. If you could go and tell your younger self

[00:03:10] something about your professional life, what would you say? Like if you literally could grab yourself and just be like, don't do this or do this, do more of this. Like what would it be? Okay. So this is, it was an interesting exercise for me.

[00:03:27] Yeah. Why? Tell me why. Because it was for me too. I think I've been thinking about why. I think I'm like the kind of person who can be fairly neurotic about small things. What restaurant we go to, what movie we decide to watch in

[00:03:42] our house, what hotel we're staying in if we're traveling. Like should we have stayed in this other one? But when it comes to big things like this, I typically don't, I don't look back with regret upon my choices. Like there's nothing where obvious to me where

[00:03:59] I'm like, oh, I should have done that. Obviously things could have gone better for me in a bunch of different ways. But if I'm going back, like this is asking me to like tell myself something that will change things. Like I just don't like, I'm fairly happy with

[00:04:14] where it ended up and even the stuff that didn't go as well as I wanted. Like I don't feel like that was because like there was something systematically or even at the moment

[00:04:23] bad. But I do have an answer to this question. It's just weirdly like if I could talk to myself like eight years ago instead of like 20 years ago or 25 years ago. But I want to know why it was hard for you.

[00:04:37] For some reason, I mean, like that's a good description of you, like neurotic about small things, but like actually weirdly chill about big things. I don't know. Like I have a little

[00:04:45] bit of the same, like I'm so selectively neurotic, but I'm not about that. I feel the same way. I almost felt guilty, especially having been the one to suggest the idea because like just

[00:04:57] the other day I was talking to people and I was like, I'm like actually really happy with my career. And it felt wrong to say that. Like I felt like as academics or something or just maybe as humans, we're just not allowed to say that nowadays.

[00:05:08] Did Mickey Inslet like have to leave Twitter because he said something like that? Yeah, I think for, yeah, no, but I'm sort of the same. I'm like, I actually don't, of course there are things that could have gone better. But when I think about how they could have

[00:05:21] gone better, we were literally just talking about a friend of ours who had like has an amazing career, but sort of just took a step back because he got tired of the maybe like the grind. And when I look back- He's happier because of that.

[00:05:37] Yeah, he's happier. And when I look back, I'm like, yeah, I'm sure like I could have like way more publications, but I don't want them. Like I just don't. Yeah, no, like you can be a lot more prestigious as a philosopher than I am,

[00:05:51] but I wouldn't do it differently. It's just what it is. I mean, like you could look at this as like major cope that we're not famous researchers. But I actually like really don't feel that. It was never an ambition for me.

[00:06:05] No, and I think it's important that people know that you can be happy and not be like the top person in your field. Like the top people in our field are not happy.

[00:06:13] Yeah, and it doesn't make them. Yeah, I mean, like sometimes it's that drive that gets them to the top of the field, but it almost never makes them happy. Either they're just driven and they like it, but it's the ones that are driven by that resentment typically.

[00:06:29] There's a lot of people who seem like they're motivated because they're trying to prove something to themselves or to their dad or something. Or to the field that just didn't take them seriously, like at some like seminal time.

[00:06:43] But there are, I mean, there are people whose like idea of a good time is to like work. We're just not like that. At least not that kind of work.

[00:06:52] No, no, no. Okay. So, but I do have an answer to this question. Like I don't want this to just be like, no, we're perfect. Everything's great. Like, thanks for listening. So after I

[00:07:01] published my book, which was hard, you know, it was getting that done. The honor book. The honor book. And that also coincided with me getting promoted to full professor. So now I'm kind of done with promotions. I'm not getting like some named chair or anything like that. I'm

[00:07:17] not trying to move until this city forces me to. But what I got out of the habit of is writing as a kind of constant thing in my life. Because I'd had this project and I had all these other projects.

[00:07:32] And then all of a sudden, you know, like now I'm like getting a lot of invited stuff because I committed to it, but I'm out of the habit of really writing. And I would tell myself, don't let

[00:07:42] yourself get out of that habit because it's very hard. Now that I'm trying to start a new project, it is very hard to get it back when you've lost it. And I'm like working on it and it's like,

[00:07:54] it's tough going. That's something I would say is just keep writing whatever it is, like a blog. Like I could have started a stupid sub stack blog or something just to get, keep my ideas churning, keep my eye on research, keep myself engaged with other people professionally, research-wise.

[00:08:12] And I kind of let myself slip that way. And that was like, I think a mistake. But again, it was a mistake literally like seven years ago. Like, and I think it was a fairly serious mistake that it's going to

[00:08:25] cost me to try to rectify. But like, yeah, when it comes to some of the other stuff, I'm okay with it compared to that. Right. Because you value it and you want to get it. It's not like riding a bike. It's not. It really isn't. That's right.

[00:08:41] Yeah. Speaking of sub stack, Paul Bloom, friend of the show has a sub stack now, so you should check it out. But he did it because he really like wanted to keep sharp with writing.

[00:08:52] I mean, he enjoys it in a way that I don't enjoy it that much. And maybe you enjoy it in a way that I don't. But yeah, it's like a daily workout for him. Okay, good. So mine is, if I could go back

[00:09:05] probably 20 years, actually, I wish so that some context is that when I first got to Cornell, I split up. I had a young infant daughter at the time, you know, junior prof trying to get tenure.

[00:09:21] It was tough. It was a tough like time for me. And it was easy to live an isolated life. Like you go in, do your thing, do what you have to do, come back and do what you have to do at home.

[00:09:33] And I'd go to conferences and I'd give talks because I have to. But one of the things that I wish I had done is set aside regular time, scheduled time to have social interaction with

[00:09:46] my colleagues. And so like there are friends that I have in the department who now I make more of an effort to meet up with them regularly. Like within the past few years,

[00:09:59] I'd say like with the start of the pandemic, it became sort of nice to try to meet up with people more regularly. And I started like a regular Zoom call with a friend every week,

[00:10:09] or at least attempted every week. And that it just like I realized that feeds my soul in a way that it's so easy for me to just be like, if I have an afternoon off, like I just want to be

[00:10:23] alone and just chill. And I don't make the effort. But when I do, it's like therapy. It's like I come away feeling so much better about everything. Even if it's just a bitch session. Totally. Which often they are.

[00:10:36] Which often it is. Yeah. And I just, I didn't realize how important that would be for my happiness. I think just making that extra effort would have gone well. And it's interesting. I feel the same way. And like I can also be a little more,

[00:10:50] you know, I like to do things my own way and be places when I want to be them. And like, I'm a big hoster. Like I'll always have people over. But if it comes to like meeting people,

[00:10:59] like happy hours, we have like department happy hours sometimes. I'm always a little bit. And I think those things are so important to just do. And also don't make other people have to schedule it. Like you schedule it sometimes. You, you, um...

[00:11:15] To be training for the people who are always trying to do it. Yeah. We had this really good system when we had this younger professor that we had hired, who unfortunately we lost through just stupid internal U of H stuff. She was great. She was

[00:11:31] exactly doing like, she got your message and she was always like, let's get every, you know, like let's meet, have crawfish, have beers. Like she didn't even drink really, but she just liked

[00:11:43] to get everybody together. And like, we were all into it, but like, it was like her doing that got us to actually do it like every couple of weeks or every few weeks. And now like it just

[00:11:55] dried up a little bit. So I agree with you. Yeah. Like those people are worth their weight in gold sometimes. Yes. So, uh, that's, that's my only regret. All right. But otherwise... Otherwise it's been amazing. I mean, obviously the podcast, like we would say don't do that.

[00:12:11] Like it'll fuck up your whole life. That is interesting actually over time, how central like to my professional identity this has become. Like it used to be a peripheral thing. Like there

[00:12:23] was my research and then there was a side thing. This fun little, yeah. Like kind of a punk thing that we did. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely, definitely would say, say yes to Tamler earlier. That's why it works.

[00:12:40] Yeah, no, it's true. This has been encroaching into our lives since it started. All right. Let's come back to talk about the cave and how to distinguish appearance from reality.

[00:13:56] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is of course the time where we like to take a moment and thank all of our supporters and listeners and people who get in touch with us in all the

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[00:17:52] supporters. Let's get to the episode. All right let's get into our main topic for today. This is Plato's Cave, the famous, maybe one of the most famous pieces of Western philosophy. Is there a

[00:18:07] more famous one than this? I doubt it right? Like there are ideas maybe that have been sticky but not like... I think therefore I am. Exactly. Yeah I agree. This is about as foundational as

[00:18:25] it gets and we've certainly referred to it. We've referred to Plato's Cave, we've referred to like shadows on the wall that we take for real things, copies of copies, the forms, all of that we're

[00:18:38] going to get into in a little more depth today. I just want to give a brief bit of background about like where this section in the Republic occurs and what's come up to that point. So this is obviously

[00:18:52] written by Plato and the Republic is his most famous text, almost certainly, that scholars place around the middle period of his writing. Now as I've definitely talked about before, Plato only wrote dialogues and he's never a character in his dialogues. So the characters in this dialogue

[00:19:13] early on are Thrasymachus and a bunch of other people trying to get a handle on what justice is. But after book one it narrows down to just Socrates and Adamantus and Glaucon and those are

[00:19:31] those two, fun fact, Plato's brothers in real life. So he has his brothers in here. They're the kind of yes men to Socrates if you want to be uncharitable in this. But this is definitely a more Socrates

[00:19:47] driven, I'm running the show dialogue than a lot of them where he actually does more engage and interact and try to drum up disagreements. Almost all of that happens early on in the Republic and

[00:20:00] then the rest is Socrates presenting and what he's presenting is a subject of great controversy ultimately. But here are just the basic facts of it, right? It starts out with this question, what is justice? And all sorts of, in the standard Plato dialogue way, all sorts of definitions

[00:20:21] are offered and none of them seem suitable. But then a Calicles-like figure, as I'm sure you'll be familiar with Calicles from the Gorgias, which we've done an episode on with Agnes Caliber. Is it related to Giannis?

[00:20:41] Gorgias had a character named Calicles who seemed to kind of get the better of Socrates or at least kind of go toe-to-toe with him in that dialogue and with the same kind of argument that Thrasymachus

[00:20:54] in the Republic is putting forth, which is justice is bullshit. It's might makes right. Like that's what matters. That justice is like the stronger get more. So really this is just a battle for political power and this question about what is justice is stupid. Like everyone would be

[00:21:12] unjust if they could. So then the question then switches from what is justice to is it better to be just than unjust for the person? Like is it better to live a life that is just or is it better

[00:21:25] to live a life that's unjust if you can get away with it? Book two has another famous metaphor, allegory, the ring of Gyges where a person is turned invisible and the point of that is if you

[00:21:36] were invisible you would go in and take whatever shit you wanted because you couldn't get caught. And so like the thing that's stopping you from being immoral is just you're weak and you don't

[00:21:47] want to get caught and you don't want to be punished and you want a good reputation and you want a good marriage. So that's the challenge that Socrates then takes himself to respond to. I want

[00:21:58] to show that it's better to live a just good life than it is to lead an unjust bad life. It's better for you. It's not just better for the city, it's better for you. But then he goes back to the

[00:22:10] question, wait hold on we forgot to talk about what justice is. Here we are trying to decide whether it's good to be just or unjust but we don't even know what justice is. So let's go back

[00:22:21] to that question. So then books three and four are trying to figure out like what justice is and the way Socrates goes about doing this is he says look it's hard to figure out what justice in an

[00:22:32] individual person is right? So let's look at what justice is in a city because it's bigger. And so if we see how like what a just city is we can just map that on to the individual. Very dubious

[00:22:47] inference there and it's not clear how seriously Plato was taking that. It's like okay well we got to build a perfectly good city and since a perfectly good city is going to have four cardinal

[00:22:58] virtues, if we can just isolate the three other virtues we'll get to justice right? And so he tries to do that. He builds from scratch this perfectly good city and I won't go into the details because

[00:23:13] you know it's complicated but basically the definition of justice in this perfectly good city is everybody doing the thing that they're naturally suited to do right? Everyone doing their own work

[00:23:27] and in particular you know not trying to rule the city if they're not suited to rule. If they don't know what's the best way to rule they don't even try to. They're not jockeying for power if they're

[00:23:40] not suited to rule. He also thinks that like the shoemaker shouldn't be a blacksmith but again it's not clear to what extent how seriously he takes that but he clearly takes very seriously that

[00:23:51] people who are not suited to rule shouldn't rule and you know that's something we could all think about right now. It's a good principle that maybe we should take more seriously. Okay now they have

[00:24:06] this conception of justice and now it just becomes about like what are the details of this city and somehow again I won't go into the details but it leads to a funky city with a somewhat

[00:24:17] communitarian like there's some feminism in here. Women can be soldiers, they can even be rulers. They're probably not going to be like the best rulers but they're going to be better than a lot

[00:24:29] of bad men rulers so you take them in when they're suited for it right? But then there's also like a eugenic system like making sure that you have these three classes of people. So there are the rulers,

[00:24:42] there are the soldiers and then there are the petty trades people right? Like so they have breeding to try a very brave new world if you've read that to try to make sure that like everybody

[00:24:56] stays in their own lane. They have a noble lie that tries to keep everybody not thinking that they should be in a different class than they are. Again it's not clear how seriously he's taking this.

[00:25:09] There's the sex lottery that is faked, it's rigged so like the idea I swear to God this is all in book five. I had no idea. Yeah so there's this sex lottery that he's going the way he's going to

[00:25:21] breed them without people knowing their bread is to have like this supposed sex lottery that everyone just uses to decide who to have sex with, who to breed with but they rig it you know? Like a social

[00:25:35] psychologist. Yeah exactly. I was wondering how that worked is there like a glory hole like you just can't see who you're having sex with? No no you can see who you're having sex with.

[00:25:45] You just you just believe that it was random assignment. You just believe that it was random but the craziest thing after all these things women can be rulers and soldiers and everybody lives together like women can be shared in common families. You're not allowed to be raised with

[00:26:00] your family, you don't even know who your family is. There's some numerology thing that stops you from sleeping with your sister by accident but like it's wild stuff it's wild shit. The Republic. That's crazy. Yeah but the craziest thing about this city is that philosophers are

[00:26:19] the ones that are suited to rule. They're going to be the only ones that can rule and the way he introduces this is like he's like who's going to be the rulers and why would they be accepted?

[00:26:29] He's like you're going to laugh but I gotta tell you you want me to tell you I'll tell you it's philosophers right? I mean I've always thought that Sean Nichols would make for the best ruler

[00:26:38] yeah no he's just Sean Nichols a bit of a carpetbagger but sure. In any case now there's this question and it's weird because like this was never supposed to be a real city but now they're

[00:26:51] asking about like how realistic this city is and Socrates even says like we were just talking about this in principle to try to isolate justice in the individual which will be reason as the ruler

[00:27:04] of appetite and spirit right but he said all right but if we want to talk about it I mean if you I'm not going to like stop you from asking me about this here's why they can rule. One of the

[00:27:16] reasons is they don't want to rule. Yeah I like that. They're like the only people who are just happy like you would relate to this happy doing their own work in their own world running your

[00:27:26] little trolley cases and you don't want to rule anybody you don't want to like run anything right like and that's what philosophers are which is precisely again this is very relevant to today's

[00:27:39] events precisely what makes them good rulers the fact that they don't want to do it they practically have to be forced to do it so just keep that in mind because now Socrates has to answer an

[00:27:53] objection and that objection is what's going to lead into our section that we read right and the objection is nobody's going to take this seriously this idea that philosophers like how can you even defend the idea that philosophers are suited to rule when the Athenians thought of philosophers

[00:28:11] pretty much like people think about philosophers today at best useless at worst sophists you know like corrupt manipulators using techniques like the sophists right and like debating skills to trick people and then the other philosopher is more like Socrates are just worthless and get on

[00:28:31] anybody's nerves and are good for nothing right so now we get I think this section I think this is fundamentally what the republic is about so this is this part then is my interpretation like it's

[00:28:43] not about justice fundamentally certainly not a guide for creating a perfect utopia as Karl Popper thought I completely disagree with the Popper reading that he was just a true totalitarian trying

[00:28:56] to become a ruler I think what it is is just a defense and an articulation of the value of philosophy right like the defense of philosophy as a spiritual enterprise we'll probably talk a lot

[00:29:10] about the kind of spiritual aspect of this section right but like I think Socrates is and Plato through Socrates here is trying to illustrate philosophy as a kind of awakening from dogmatic slumbers from believing things just received even though they're false a way to cut through the

[00:29:30] illusions cut through the bullshit and see things as they truly are instead of just how they appear to be and this is where we get into our section why are philosophers suited to this and uniquely

[00:29:45] suited to achieve this it is because only they are pursuing knowledge about the good itself the form of the good you need knowledge of the good the actual form of the good in order to identify

[00:30:05] truly good things and not be deceived by things that only appear to be good just how you know we're not big classical music fans and so we could probably get deceived and think that a piece

[00:30:19] of classical music was good because we don't understand like what really makes a piece of classical music good right and so that's the thing that you need ultimately to defend against a kind

[00:30:33] of relativism where we have no idea what's good and what's bad all we're working with is appearances that's where we're headed unless we can have some group of people who are actually focused on the

[00:30:48] thing itself the good only with that can you distinguish things that are actually good from things that just have the appearance of being good right yeah and that leads us to okay but what is

[00:31:00] the good and what are these forms and what is the form of the good and what the fuck are you talking and this section is an answer to that question well no that actually was super helpful for me

[00:31:14] and i'm sure for our listeners because like i have like the most minimal of concepts of what's what was going on in the republic and that was just a question i had like what was the motivation

[00:31:24] for this what is it so like i like your interpretation because it makes it totally make sense that this is the culmination like he's getting to this he's getting to the like

[00:31:32] look there is a way of of accessing the true true things and the way that you do that is the way that we as philosophers have discovered yeah how to do it and we're going to talk about

[00:31:43] like the methods and especially the role of dialectic when it comes to this can i just tell you like a couple of things that struck me as i was reading yeah um so one this happens

[00:31:54] whenever i read any plato like plato i am always struck by two things one what a surprisingly modern way of thinking yeah is present in like whatever 300 something bc totally read book eight i don't know if you read book eight but book eight which goes through these

[00:32:14] different kinds of systems and then when it gets to democracy it diagnoses like all the ills and problems of a democracy so well yeah and it's just crazy you're just like wow like there was already as much progress being made there like everything it does feel like everything

[00:32:30] has been just like refining ideas you know not to downplay like some big ideas but like that it's there it's there in nascent form in its modern form yeah i mean i think that's true

[00:32:41] about the greeks i think it's true about you know like a lot of eastern texts too because we're humans are humans like yeah joseph campbell and young are right like we all care about the

[00:32:51] same shit yeah but this method like i guess that what's striking it shouldn't be striking because obviously western philosophy like built built on on this so clearly so like it shouldn't be

[00:33:02] surprising to me at the same time it reads like a comedy sometimes to me the way they're just like yes absolutely socrates you're right this is a yes i will i have organized things as you say now

[00:33:17] i can't possibly deny that that is like the most insane bad shit thing you've ever heard yeah it's it's it's like reading sherlock holmes a little bit but like even crazier where where

[00:33:30] sherlock holmes are like oh like if it didn't make sense but everyone was like oh of course yeah no but i think that like i've definitely had that criticism but i actually think that

[00:33:41] does it well it's not even a criticism it's just like sort of like a laughter at the form yeah i can't tell if this is a weakness of the republic or you know i'm a little bit in the bag for plato

[00:33:51] and i think it's intentional because other dialogues aren't like this like people put up a bit of a fight you know or they you know and if that happens less in the republic this one it's

[00:34:01] almost like he just didn't like glock on and he just wants to make him seem like he's simping for socrates you know well both of them are his brothers so yeah it could have been just a shot

[00:34:10] and you'll believe anything you stupid fucks you idiots i'm playing but i do think like we have to remember it's a dialogue it is not plato just giving his and a lot of the thing that motivated

[00:34:22] this like thrasymachus put up a good fight and even adamantius and glaucon in the beginning of book two present thrasymachus' challenge in a really strong form anticipating a lot of nicha stuff like thrasymachus and calicles are like nicha this is the one who says might might equals

[00:34:38] right kind of yeah exactly and also that but the way they frame it and the way calicles does in the gorgias is like it's the weak that prays morality because like they can't be immoral

[00:34:49] they get their ass kicked and so they're like oh the best thing is to be weak and humble and not hurt anybody of course they say that you know and like that's the you see that already in plato

[00:35:00] yeah okay so can i ask a question that might require us to jump right into the allegory of the cave like i got throughout you know the claim that there is a world of forums like that

[00:35:13] that we access through this dialectic but but i wasn't sure what the good was like what is the notion of the good right there are three images that we're going to talk about are metaphors

[00:35:24] the first is the sun which will be a part of the cave too as an analog for the good so exactly what you just asked right the second is the divided line where he separates the visible world

[00:35:40] from the intelligible world and then subdivides each of those realm into two and the good is what's powering all of that and then of course the cave so let's talk about the sun yeah i mean like

[00:35:55] honestly this was the metaphor that gave me the most trouble um so he says we say that there are many beautiful things and many good things and so on for each kind and in this way we distinguish

[00:36:05] them in words we do and beauty itself and good itself and all the things that we thereby set down as many reversing ourselves we set down according to a single form of each believing

[00:36:14] that there is but one and calling it the being of each that's true and we say that the many beautiful things and the rest are visible but not intelligible while the forms are intelligible

[00:36:26] but not visible so there are beautiful things and good things cursed and dunced in eternal sunshine and bad things and then there is beauty itself and good itself what does it even mean to call

[00:36:41] something beautiful like what property do they have what does it share in what does it participate in similarly with things that are good you know like straw dogs okay but what makes it good why

[00:36:55] are we not just talking about like personal tastes about like do you like eggplant or broccoli or mashed potatoes there has to be something there that allows us to call these things beautiful

[00:37:08] and these things good and those are the forms of something that they share a property that they all share it's their being somehow right so it's like positing that there's got to be this

[00:37:21] like if we're going to be making these kind of true statements about these things there's got to be something that makes that true or false it separates appearance from reality right and so

[00:37:31] in visible like all these things are visible like kirsten dunst would be like a butterfly those are all visible yeah but we're but not intelligent if they're good you can see the vicodin yeah we

[00:37:41] see the cabinet medicine cabinet right they haven't taken it now they're probably not going to take it right you know we see the vicodin but we don't see that we don't it's the good isn't

[00:37:51] visible the good yes it is intelligible that's the decision uh whatever makes it good we don't know what it is and we don't even know if it is good since we don't know what the good is but whatever

[00:38:01] it is if there is something we can't see it so it's got to be in the intelligible realm the like reason realm right here's where he gets into okay but like let's stick with the visible what is the

[00:38:16] thing that you need in order to see visible things sight sight isn't the sun neither sight itself nor that in which it comes to be namely the eye no it certainly isn't but i think that it is the

[00:38:28] most sun-like of the senses very much so and it receives from the sun the power it has just like an influx from an overflowing treasury certainly the sun is not sight but isn't it the cause of

[00:38:42] sight itself and seen by it that's right let's say then that this is what i call the offspring of the good which the good begot as its analog what the good itself is in the intelligible realm in relation

[00:38:54] to understanding and intelligible things the sun is in the visible realm in relation to sight and visible things how explain a bit more so i think what he's setting up here is like you have

[00:39:06] the sun isn't sight like sight is this thing is this capacity that we have but sun allows us to see things right right uh it says you get you have the thing that's going to be seen you have the person

[00:39:21] seeing but like those two aren't enough like sun is the thing that needs to for and to happen yeah to connect us to the thing and allow us to see it yeah so that's one thing that the sun does

[00:39:32] but it doesn't just do that it also nurtures the thing so like if you're looking at a tree not only is the sun enabling you to see the tree which you wouldn't be able to see if it was pitch

[00:39:45] black out but it's also like the thing that allowed the tree to grow you need sunlight for a tree to grow the idea is that the sun and the form of the good by analogy is both epistemologically

[00:40:01] necessary but also metaphysically necessary i guess is what i'm going to say like that tree wouldn't exist without the sun and we wouldn't be able to see it if it wasn't for the sun right

[00:40:13] that's how that's where i'm kind of lost though like what is the good doing that's like what the sun is doing so what are the two things that the good is doing well that's what we got to talk

[00:40:21] about we're gonna have to answer that by the end of this discussion okay or like the next episode discussion all right all right so um you want me to be socrates for a second sure we'll understand

[00:40:34] the soul in the same way as like your eyes right when it focuses on something illuminated by truth and what is it understands knows and apparently possesses understanding but when it focuses on

[00:40:46] what is mixed with obscurity on what comes to be and passes away it opines changes its opinions this way in that and seems bereft of understanding it does seem that way so here's the key passage

[00:40:59] so what gives truth to things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good and though it is the cause of knowledge and truth it is also an object of knowledge keep that in

[00:41:14] mind it's both the cause of knowledge and truth it's like what enables us to have it and what enables the truth to be the truth but it's also an object of knowledge it's something that we can

[00:41:26] know also both knowledge and truth are beautiful things but the good is other and more beautiful than they so the good is like on a other level than the forms right okay it is what allows the

[00:41:40] forms to be the forms makes the forms the forms because if what is an ideal table if there's no good to like say what is ideal and what is not what is an ideal policy right like what is an

[00:41:54] podcast if there's no form of the good that gives us like standards to measure okay that's what i think it is you know what i was missing is the normative part there yeah whereas the form seemed

[00:42:08] to be to me to be like okay there is an ideal table that gives every other thing is an instance of that ideal table ideal means ideal and in a different sense too like not just the idea that

[00:42:21] exists of the table but the best the best table yes right and everything and what it means you can't have best things without some force of good that's creating the best things exactly okay

[00:42:33] that's how i read it anyway right like yeah yeah that was really honestly that was really confusing yes yeah and in the visible world we don't get the best table we get copies of the best table

[00:42:45] but the best table is something that was only philosophers can see uh using dialectic but like we just get to see copies of tables and we don't know if we're not philosophers whether they're

[00:43:00] good tables or bad tables even and this is going to be like important when it comes to justice right because the form of justice is what was originally being debated like what is justice

[00:43:13] and uh what socrates is saying is that all we're going to have is just opinions about justice if we don't know the form of justice but the only way there can even be a form of justice so we can

[00:43:27] tell us what is really just and unjust is if there's a form of the good that both illuminates and nourishes the form of justice by the way glock on response this is an inconceivably beautiful

[00:43:40] thing that you're talking about yes because it provides both knowledge and truth and is superior to them in beauty it really is like this is god the form of the good is like god yeah or very much

[00:43:53] like i don't know awake awareness and buddhism i definitely am not going to be able to not talk about the buddhist parallels of of this it is a divine thing that they're talking about because it

[00:44:06] gives birth to like everything else you know yeah both imperfect and perfect so that's the first analogy the second one uh now that we have these two realms of the intelligible and the visible he says okay so take a line and divide it between intelligible and uh in

[00:44:28] and visible and also divide those two lines and weirdly he wants to divide them by the same ratios yeah that's i wasn't sure what work that was doing and i don't think anybody really knows

[00:44:42] you know like basically the idea is in the visible realm we have things themselves that are visible which are not things themselves to be clear like a lamp or a computer or my water bottle right and

[00:44:57] then you have images of those reflections of those like this can be like a play about a water bottle or a painting of a water bottle or just a reflection of a water bottle or i think possibly

[00:45:09] even just me looking at this water bottle from my anger but in any case there's a clear dividing line between portrayals of it in the visible world and the thing itself right like cc nipaz and people

[00:45:22] yes right in the intelligible realm now this is tricky right there's also uh there's a divided line that is to the same ratio in the first part of it so this is like the reflect uh mapped on to

[00:45:37] the reflections of things in the visible world is mathematical knowledge essentially mathematical truths modeled on the like euclidean geometry where okay here are four axioms or five axioms you can build a whole system of knowledge just from those five axioms but what you can't do are

[00:46:00] four axioms whatever it is but what you can't do is justify those axioms like you accept them as self-evident or true or just as accepted assumptions but everything stands or falls on those axioms right that's the system it's not visible so here's where you get real triangles and

[00:46:21] real squares and real parallelograms and pyramids and all of that like these are the things themselves in geometrical formulas but all of that comes from principles that you've just accepted as true without having knowledge that they're true right right so that's one side of the line

[00:46:42] on the other side of the line are the propositions that you get from initially from what i understand it provisional hypotheses but ultimately and it's not clear how this is supposed to work we got to talk about it somehow if you take the euclidean axioms they become

[00:47:09] justified through this process and so nothing at this point is being accepted on faith nothing is being accepted without having knowledge of it and in that realm are the forms like this distinction

[00:47:23] is like was confusing to me too on just my read of it is what he's saying like when you do geometry even though you are drawing a triangle or speaking of the triangle mathematically it's still

[00:47:36] the intellect's version of the image yes like it's still it's still just the reflection that the form of the triangle is leaving on our intellect right like in some way so here's what he says right he

[00:47:51] says i think you know that students of geometry calculation and the like hypothesize the odd and the even the various figures the three kinds of angles and other things akin to each of their

[00:48:01] investigations as if they knew them they hypothesize them as if they knew them they make these their hypotheses and don't think it necessary to give an account of them either to themselves

[00:48:12] or to others as if it were clear to everybody like these truths we hold to be self-evident right uh and and going from these first principles through the remaining steps uh they arrive in full

[00:48:25] agreement so it's like okay this kind of foundational thing where we just accept these five principles and everything that logically follows from that that is like yeah like you said reflections images of real things in the visible world they make their claims for the

[00:48:43] sake of the square itself and the diagonal itself not the diagonal they draw and similarly with the others these figures that they make and draw of which shadows and reflections in water are images

[00:48:52] they now in turn use as images in seeking to see those other themselves that one cannot see except by means of thought yeah this is the kind of thing that on the one hand i said is

[00:49:02] intelligible and on the other is such that the soul is forced to use hypotheses in the investigation of it not traveling up to a first principle since it cannot reach beyond its hypotheses

[00:49:14] but using images those very things of which images were made in the section below in which by comparison to their images were thought to be clear and to be valued as such so then he goes

[00:49:26] transitions to the other side which is then also understand that by the other subsection of the intelligible i mean that which reason itself grasps by the power of dialectic it does not consider these hypotheses as first principles like in geometry but truly as hypotheses as stepping

[00:49:45] stones to take off from enabling it to reach the unhypothetical first principle of everything the good right having grasped this principle it reverses itself keeping hold of what follows from it and comes to a conclusion without making use of anything visible at all but only the forms

[00:50:03] themselves moving on from forms to forms and ending in forms and then uh glaucon says i understand if not yet adequately which fair enough right so that not adequately is what leads to the cave it's like

[00:50:21] okay i'm gonna try to explain it from you right like i get the you do get the difference between those two things right it's through this process of dialectic in that passage that i read of like using hypotheses as hypotheses but still somehow traveling to the first principle

[00:50:38] that then goes back and justifies those initial hypotheses and gives rise to everything that's what dialectic is but what is dialectic so we'll yeah keep that question in mind because i think

[00:50:53] we'll get back to that a lot seems to rest on on that on that method but but there's it's not impossible to at least kind of conceive of how this might work yeah i mean in some real way

[00:51:06] that's what's what he's doing right now like in a meta way right um so now we get to the cave finally the promised uh topic of our episode should we read this and just talk about it as we

[00:51:21] go yeah sure i think that's a good idea i think it's worth it all right next i said compare the effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature to an experience like this it's very

[00:51:32] interesting just to interject he immediately introduces education as and i do think like a lot of the republic is just about education right and he says this is us and this is our education imagine human beings living in an underground cave-like dwelling with an entrance a long way

[00:51:51] up which is both open to the light and as wide as the cave itself they've been there since childhood fixed in the same place with their necks and legs fettered able to only see in front of them

[00:52:03] because their bonds prevented them from turning their heads around light is provided by a fire burning far above them also behind them but on higher ground there's a path stretching between

[00:52:12] them and the fire imagine that along this path a low wall has been built like the screen in front of puppeteers above which they show their puppets i'm imagining can i just say here

[00:52:26] it might help people to like just google plato's cave and see the visual representation of what he's describing because he's describing it in a way that like i found a little confusing then also

[00:52:36] imagine there are people along the wall carrying all kinds of artifacts that project above it statues of people and other animals made out of stone and wood and every material and as you

[00:52:45] expect some of the carriers are talking and some are silent it's a strange image you're describing and strange prisoners they're like us do you suppose first of all that these prisoners see

[00:52:59] anything of themselves in one another besides the shadows that the fire casts on the wall in front of them how could they if they have to keep their heads motionless throughout life what about the

[00:53:09] things being carried along the wall isn't the same true of them of course and if they could talk to one another don't you think they'd suppose that the names they've used to apply

[00:53:20] to the things they see passing before them they'd have to so here's the thing if it's a puppet show right if the listeners haven't figured it out right there's a source of light in between that

[00:53:30] source of light there's like a little puppet show going on with the wall and the prisoners are only facing the wall so you're just doing like you're doing like a little rabbit shape with your hand

[00:53:39] yeah well no you have a like a little yeah cardboard cut out of a rabbit i'm behind the wall so like it's a paper cut out but i'm giving a voice to them so like my voice is bouncing off of

[00:53:53] the wall that you're facing as a prisoner because i am now hearing the voice of the person bouncing off the wall it's coming from the same place as the shadow is so i think the shadows are talking

[00:54:05] that's right yes it's funny because you don't really see that but of course like they're enacting little dramas on there you know usually you think of it as they're walking with a dog and

[00:54:15] oh that's a dog and they're walking into a tree that but there's actually dramas playing out in front of them that's actually uh like an important detail actually not a little detail he says then

[00:54:26] the prisoners would in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of these artifacts so to be clear like they what they think is a real tree or a real dog or like a real

[00:54:39] rabbit or a real act of justice you might imagine that's going on because of the voices that are playing out not only isn't the actual tree or actual dog it is a shadow of a cutout of a dog

[00:54:54] like it's a shadow of a cardboard cut out of a dog so this is when i say copies of copies this is one of the things i'm referring to but as far as they're concerned that's what a dog is i see

[00:55:06] Trixie i think Trixie is a dog but actually she's like a reflection of already an artifact like an artificial artifact of a dog right so i say they must surely believe that consider then

[00:55:20] what being released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance would be like when one of them was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up this is also kind of interesting they're just freed

[00:55:30] and compelled to stand up turn his head and look up towards the light at the top of the cave he'd be pained and dazzled this is important he'd be pained and dazzled and unable to see things whose

[00:55:42] shadows he'd seen before because now all of a sudden you're looking up at the fire you're even seeing a little diffused light from the entrance and now all of a sudden if you go back you don't

[00:55:51] even see the shadows well anymore your eyes are a little blinded right what do you think he'd say if we told him that what he'd seen before was inconsequential but that now because he is a bit

[00:56:02] closer to the things and is turned towards things that are more he sees more correctly or to put it another way if we pointed to each of the things passing by asked him what each of them is and

[00:56:15] compelled him to answer don't you think he'd be at a loss and that he'd believe that the things he saw earlier were truer than the things he was now being shown much truer and if someone compelled

[00:56:25] him to look at the light itself wouldn't his eyes hurt and wouldn't he turn around and flee towards the things he's been able to see believing that they're much clearer than the ones he's being

[00:56:34] shown he would so that's interesting do you want to pause there yeah because i'm part of me doesn't catch that intuition like part of me thinks that aside from the pain of seeing the light he ought

[00:56:47] to think that those things are the truer things like but the impulse might be to go with the thing that you're comfortable with absolutely like i get i believe what did you say in the opening right

[00:56:57] like i'm always just like want to withdraw into like yeah you know like my comfort to your comfort zone right and so like all of a sudden like oh no the thing that you thought was like a real dog

[00:57:10] that you thought you loved is not a real dog it's not even close you know like oh wait i want to go back to my real no you got to keep going put me back in the matrix buddy yeah exactly so it's very

[00:57:21] clear that if somebody dragged him away from there by force up the rough steep path and didn't let him go until he had dragged him into the sunlight wouldn't he be pained and irritated at being

[00:57:34] treated that way and when he came into the light with the sun filling his eyes wouldn't he be unable to see a single one of the things now said to be true he would be unable to see them at least at

[00:57:46] first i suppose then that he'd need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above at first he'd see shadows most easily than images of men and other things in water than the

[00:57:57] things themselves of these he'd be able to study the things in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night and looking at the stars and the moon then finally i suppose he'd be able to see

[00:58:07] the sun not images of it in water or some alien place but the sun itself its own place and be able to study it necessarily so and at this point he would infer and conclude that the sun provides

[00:58:18] the seasons and the years governs everything in the visible world and is in some way the cause of all the things he used to see it's clear that would be his next step so like this was something

[00:58:29] you raised earlier what does he mean and is in some way the cause of all the things he used to see right if what trips me up is that it's like a big it's like i'm not a mixed metaphor but like

[00:58:39] it's a metaphor being used for multiple things i don't know what the coming out of the cave into the sun you tell me i mean i get that like he's that layer of the metaphor i get the sun is

[00:58:49] obviously the cause of all of the things that he used to see though so what i take that to mean is the sun isn't just the cause of the tree that he's now able to see now that his eyes are adjusted

[00:59:03] it's not just the cause of the tree because it provides the light it needs to grow and it illuminates it's also the cause of the artifact of the tree because these people for reasons that

[00:59:13] are unclear are trying to portray a tree to the prisoners and do this little drama with them but if there wasn't the tree in the first place you couldn't even have the artifact of the tree and

[00:59:24] you couldn't even have the shadow of the tree so all the stuff even the fake stuff even the appearance of stuff is ultimately being caused by the sun right so that's the part i never think of

[00:59:35] because i think of the cave being this self-contained thing where there are shadows being cast on the wall and the shadows of the things aren't the things but this is a three-layered metaphor the shadows aren't the things casting the shadows the things casting the shadows aren't the

[00:59:53] true things no right it's like the real water bottle and not just an image of it or maybe my perspective of it there's a drawing of the pipe there's the pipe and then there's the form of the

[01:00:02] yes exactly and what we see what's interesting is if we're the prisoners then it's like all we see are the reflections of things in the visible world so how do you interpret that i interpret that as

[01:00:16] i only see things from a certain perspective so i don't even see like whatever the visible tree is i don't even see that i see my perspective of the visible tree right which is in some ways the same

[01:00:28] as seeing a painting of the tree and so i take it like that but i think people have lots of interpretation but what do you make of the fact that this person is dragged up here that's the

[01:00:39] part where either i could go with this as a metaphor for something that's being done like i take i take it that what he's talking about is the process of education the sort of gnashing of teeth that

[01:00:51] is required to get yourself to the point where you can even start to understand things as they truly are and that that's like something that is not only just not done in our everyday life it's not

[01:01:04] necessary to live like a certain kind of life and it's uncomfortable to do it and it takes a lot of effort and in some cases suffering to get to that point right and socrates maybe is the guy doing the

[01:01:18] dragging he's trying to drag everybody yeah the only issue with that is i think the socratic method works by like precisely not getting people to do this by force you have to engage them and

[01:01:34] willingly everyone has to be doing this process of dialectic which we'll talk about that kind of winnowing down winnowing down your false beliefs to try to find like the true thing uh that has

[01:01:46] to be done as i understand it by people who are willing participants now sometimes in plato's dialogues people aren't willing participants like if the calicles just stops being willing to engage in the gorgias but then the process doesn't work and he frizzes out like it needs willing

[01:02:06] participants so this idea of dragging by force is a little strange to me but i just read it as a as a metaphor like i'd never read it as this is literal force being applied any more than that

[01:02:20] these are like literal puppet shows but rather that it's a difficult and uncomfortable route to get to this stage and that you're being brought along in a way that can make you very uncomfortable

[01:02:35] not that the teacher has to force people to do it yeah so that's a good bridge to this he says education isn't what some people declare it to be putting knowledge into souls that lack it like

[01:02:48] putting sight into blind eyes but that the power to learn is in everybody's soul and the instrument with which each learns is like the eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without

[01:03:00] turning the whole body this instrument cannot be turned around from that which is coming into being without turning the whole soul until it is able to study that which is and the brightest thing then education is the craft concerned with doing this very thing this turning around

[01:03:17] and with how the soul can most easily and effectively be made to do it it isn't the craft of putting sight into the soul education takes for granted that the site is there but that it

[01:03:27] isn't turned the right way or looking where it ought to look and it tries to redirect it appropriately yeah so i think that's a really interesting kind of beautiful way of talking about what education is

[01:03:40] it isn't just i tell you stuff that is true and you believe it i orient you and you discover the truth through this process of ascending and we'll talk about the mystical elements of this but like

[01:03:54] you do it i just orient you very much like a you know like a guru guide you know that is allowing the person using pointers to arrive at some kind of true discovery but like you said

[01:04:11] it's going to be hard for them and it's going to be uncomfortable and it's going to require discipline and it's going to require your whole soul you can't do it half-assed yeah and i think

[01:04:22] like just removing the mystical and just sticking to like pedagogy like what is education it is a terrible and misguided view of what good education means and i think unfortunately one that people still have that it is just about transferring knowledge yeah because like i think that's

[01:04:41] when people think that they can do a lot of this without sort of being guided if you think of this stripped down view of what education is is just a teacher putting knowledge into your head then

[01:04:51] you're like well knowledge is available to me right so like i don't know let me skip the middleman right exactly yeah yeah yeah that's right because he really did believe that was his job he was the

[01:05:00] educator you know what i mean like he was the that's why he wrote dialogues he thought uh if i can't talk to people which is the ultimate way of turning them around i can at least write dialogues

[01:05:11] and let them come to their own conclusions rather than just tell them what to think and the dialogue form is precisely for that yeah yeah and it's like surprisingly a humble move to not make yourself

[01:05:23] the center of the dialogue yeah yeah so then sticking with pedagogy yeah i do think teaching is that it's literally teaching people how to learn themselves i mean we've all had that feeling like

[01:05:35] it really does feel like it is a beautiful way of describing it like trying to turn someone's head yeah turn someone's head who's been immobile for like most of their lives right like there's

[01:05:47] like atrophied and you're trying to turn their head and i think we've all had the experience of having students who just don't respond in the right way and the frustration of like i'm trying

[01:06:01] my best to give you the tools to like orient you and it's not working yeah i mean definitely sometimes they're just not interested or they don't want to like question the things that

[01:06:12] that you want them to question um and in that way i guess like the prisoners not to be elitist about this because we have our own shadows that we take to be the truth for sure but of course there

[01:06:24] are some points where they're not interested and this is actually important i think to this image because once the guy is out in the forms and he's not only looked at the images like geometry

[01:06:39] geometry is like the reflections of trees in the water and the reflection of the sun in the water but then their eyes get adjusted and it becomes uh like oh my god this is it this is a transformative

[01:06:54] maybe transcendental experience and then when they can look at the sun and understand the sun and understand like how all of this works it's incredible and if it were up to them they would

[01:07:05] stay out there and just learn more about the actual world and not this shadows of cardboard cutouts that they've thought was the world before but they are made to go down there and when they

[01:07:17] go down there a couple things are kind of interesting number one just as it took their eyes a while to adjust being outside it takes their eyes a while to adjust being down in there and so now

[01:07:29] they can't even see the shadows as well as the other prisoners like now they're trying to explain to these no that's not a real tree and they're like that's not a tree that's a bush or you know

[01:07:39] that's a piece of cauliflower and like what are you talking about and they're making fun of them and they're angry and they don't want to be like preached to or talked to and they're made fun of

[01:07:49] and ridiculed and mocked right like that's what Socrates was and i don't know it's like a it's kind of a perfect metaphor for that it's like Socrates is like no no yes i get i get it you

[01:08:00] think i'm ugly and clumsy and dirty and i don't do the normal things because i don't understand your world like here you are like talking about like is this just is that just you know like you don't

[01:08:13] know what you're talking about and i'm trying to show you but they think they do and that's the thing they think they know they think those things are real and here's this other person who seems

[01:08:23] like completely poorly suited to even identify the things that they can identify and they're trying to tell them like what's behind all of it like no that's crazy like eventually you'll get

[01:08:35] sick of it and put him to death and that's what happened you know spoiler hey yeah do you want to make this a two-parter what do you think do we have a whole nother episode left or do you think

[01:08:48] we cut it i think we do given like yeah we could i think we might like i don't feel like we're scratching the surface yeah like there's so much we haven't talked about the mystical i have a

[01:08:55] whole thing okay like i and i like i honestly want to talk about like this this theory like like i do want to tie it back to his his nativism and be like right what is going on like like the

[01:09:06] soul the soul is recognizing these things because uh because it's already there it's already there yeah and like what does it mean to be already there because it's not really talked about in

[01:09:16] this metaphor no it's it's might be arguably assumed because of like the way the soul is constituted uh if it's even here right if the soul is oriented the right way like i love that

[01:09:31] like the education isn't what some people declare to be it's not putting knowledge into souls and i read it as it's because he thinks that souls already have it so like they're they'll recognize

[01:09:40] the forms once we put them yes like once we get them to look at yeah which and this is something we can talk about next episode is i think reflected in most mystical traditions this idea that

[01:09:53] something is already here that you just can't see and it's good and and and like there is so much like there's like neoplatonism that that borrowed whatever version of of this sort of like and turned it into something um that influenced christian early christianity and gnosticism

[01:10:12] and like this a view that maybe it's a demiurge that created this version of the world and like we need to just turn away from that and yeah so there's a lot for us to get i agree that's actually

[01:10:22] a great idea let's uh we went into the real weeds in this episode yeah which was good because like this is a text that like that's what it's for like i don't know like perfect i love it like

[01:10:33] cool all right so uh all right well hopefully you're enjoying this uh let us know if you are or you aren't because we might do more of these kinds of episodes how did you like it

[01:10:44] i feel like i'm in class with tamlor summers i like it i know i feel like i've been too much of a teacher more than no no but it's good like you know we've had these we've done a

[01:10:53] few of these style things where like i'm talking a lot or you're talking a lot and one of us always feels some sort of way like but but i actually am like digging it this text is amazing like this

[01:11:03] isn't it you've turned my head towards the line i'm trying i've been trying forever you know at the end of it straw dog oh i thought you were gonna say hemlock i was like that's cruel straw dogs and

[01:11:16] hemlock i think that's a good pairing all right well we'll be back to wrap it up and give the definitive interpretation of the allegory of the cave and the divided line in the sun and all of that join us next time on very bad wizards

[01:12:05] anybody can have a brain very bad man i'm a very good man just a very bad wizard