洞穴之喻：这是柏拉图在《国家篇》514-521中描述的对人类知识的基本想像。设想在一个地穴中有一批囚徒；他们自小待在那里，被锁链束缚，不能转头，只能看前面洞壁上的影子。在他们后上方有一堆火，有一条横贯洞穴的小岛：沿小道筑有一堵矮墙，如同木偶戏的屏风。人们扛着各种器具走过墙后的小道，而火光则把透出墙的器具投影到囚徒面前的洞壁上。囚徒自然地认为影子是惟一真实的事物。如果他们中的一个碰巧获释，转过头来看到了火光与物体，他最初会感到困惑；他的眼睛会感到痛苦；他甚至会认为影子比它们的原物更真实。
如果有人进一步拉他走出洞穴，到阳光下的世界，他会更加眩目，甚至会发火；起初他只能看到事物在水中的倒影，然后才能看见阳光中的事物，最后甚至能看太阳自身。到那时他才处于真正的解放状态，会开始怜悯他的囚徒同伴、他的原来的信仰和生活。如果他返回去拯救他的囚徒同伴，他得有一段时间去适应洞中的黑暗，并且会发现很难说服他们跟他走出洞穴。
这一比喻与太阳之喻和线段之喻相联系，洞穴之中的世界相应于可感世界，而洞穴外面的世界则比作理智世界。可是原文可作许多不同的解释。
柏拉图明确生成囚徒与我们想像，即是说他们代表人类的状态；而囚徒被拉出洞穴的过程则类似于通过教育而获得启蒙的过程。我们可以把上升之途和对上面事物的观照解释成是灵魂上升到理智世界的过程。洞穴之喻对于后来的政治和教育理论影响甚巨。
“苏格拉底的洞穴之喻是要告诉我们，人类在一般情形下是通过事物的影子来间接地看事物。”
——克隆比：《柏拉图学说考察》，1962年，I，第117页。
cave, simile of the：A fundamentalimage of human knowledge and reality described by Plato in the Republic (514– 21).Imagine prisoners in an underground cave who have been there since theirchildhood. They are chained in such a way that they cannot turn their heads butcan only see the shadows on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows arecast by a fire behind them and by the artifacts that men carry and pass along atrack across the cave, like the screen at a puppet show. The prisoners naturallybelieve that the shadows are the only real things. If one of them happens to bereleased and turns round to the fire and to see the objects themselves, he willinitially be bewildered, his eyes will be in pain, and he will think that theshadows are more real than their originals.
If he is furtherdragged upward through the entrance of the cave and to the sunlight, he will beeven more dazzled and angry. At first, he will only be able to see the reflectionsof the real things in the water, and then the things themselves in the light ofthe sun, and finally even the sun itself. At that time, he will be in a conditionof real liberation and will pity his fellow-prisoners and his old beliefs andlife. If he goes back to save his fellow-prisoners, it will take time for himto get used to the darkness in
the cave, andhe will find it hard to persuade the prisoners to follow him upward.
This simile isconnected with the simile of the Sun and the simile of the Line, with the worldinside the cave corresponding to the perceptible world and the world outsidethe cave corresponding to the intelligible world, but the text has beensubjected to a variety of divergent interpretations.
Platoexplicitly stated that the prisoners are like us and serve as a representationof the human condition, and the prisoner being dragged out of the cave isanalogous to a process of enlightenment by education. We can interpret theupward journey and the contemplation of things above as the upward journey ofthe soul to the intelligible realm. The Cave simile exerted great influence onlater political and educational theories.
“Socrates is meant to tellus in the [simile of the] cave that the general condition of mankind is one ofseeing things indirectly through their images.”
Crombie, An Examination ofPlato’s Doctrine
联系客服
