continued…

The Cave is Plato’s analogy for the actual (but not directly perceived by some humans) structure of reality.

The real problem with his analogy is an epistemological issue. If humans do NOT actually perceive existence directly HOW WOULD A HUMAN KNOW THAT? Or be able to figure it out? Once Plato claimed (and in some cases convinced people) that human perception is an invalid method for dealing with reality he accomplished two goals.

The first is to undercut the concept of objectivity. Metaphysically this translates into the question, “If you are going to start out by claiming that human senses (and therefore perception) are NOT valid, then, how would you ever be able to verify that information? Furthermore, how would you ever be able to make anymore claims about anything?” Of course this never stops Plato (or Kant or Hegel) from continuing to make claims. I mean, really….stop and think about that chain of thoughts for a second:

I am human.
I have human senses and they are my means of perceiving reality.
Human senses are invalid (or imperfect) for perceiving reality.
Therefore I cannot possibly ever make any valid conclusions or observations about reality.
But I will continue to write long, complicated philosophical prose anyway.
The second goal is to undercut the efficacy of the human mind. Plato is not interested in convincing you that he is right. He just wants you to feel confused enough to say, “Wow that’s confusing. It must be really deep and important. I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, but he probably does so it must be right to doubt the validity of my senses and mind.”

That’s all he wants. Plato was either stupid enough to actually believe his own ideas which would make him relatively harmless or else he was smart enough to know he was peddling nonsense (conveyed as “philosophy”) which would make him essentially evil.

Why else would someone set up a false, arbitrary/hypothetical explanation of human perception (“world of ideals vs. world of shadows”, “filtered perception”) and an equally invalid theory of concepts (“ideal shapes and forms”) or an invalid theory of ethics (Kant’s “categorical imperatives”)? Basically, because if you can get people to accept that much then it’s (in the words of Cole Porter) “Anything goes!”. The crazier and more esoteric the idea, the better! Is it any wonder we have blockhead psychics on TV talking to dead pets? Or people successfully claiming in courts of justice that society “made them” kill innocent people (because the killer doesn’t have volition but society somehow does)?