Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

In this essay, I will compare the images of the “Sea of Beauty” and of the sun in the allegory of the cave, explaining what each refers to, how it works for Plato, and what putting these images side by side reveals about Plato’s understanding of philosophy. The “Sea of Beauty” that Plato often refers to is the final step in his “Ascent of Love.” His “Ascent of Love” is related in the context of education and philosophy. Plato believes that one can only ascend to the “Sea of Beauty” through philosophy taught by a skilled teacher. This contrasts with the historical Socrates, Plato’s mentor, because Socrates vehemently denies being a teacher. Socrates doesn’t see any value in education while Plato sees education as immensely valuable as seen …show more content…
They are both placed at the top of an ascent: the “Sea” at the top of the “Ascent of Love” and the sun at the top of the ascent from the cave. However, where the “Ascent of Love” ascends from the beauty of bodies to Form to Soul to Laws & Customs to Knowledge to the “Sea of Beauty,” the prisoner in the Allegory of the Cave ascends from the cave into the light, first seeing “shadows most easily, then images of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. Of these, he'd be able to study the things in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than during the day, looking at the sun and the light of the sun” (Allegory 2). I believe that the sun is a metaphor for philosophy. Plato believes that philosophy is the only thing that can drag us out of ignorance and into the reality of things which is illuminated only by philosophy. Otherwise, we are still just looking at shadows and reflections of the things themselves. So, I believe that Plato believes Philosophy is the only way to see the things themselves. So, Philosophy itself, in its truest form, illuminates those things themselves, which we can only see by transcending ignorance and ascending into the intelligible realm outside the cave through philosophy. However, together with Plato’s “Ascent of Love,” we must think through what both mean together if the sun is philosophy itself and the “Sea of Beauty” is beauty itself. If the “Sea of Beauty” is beauty itself and philosophy itself is what illuminates “the things themselves,” then the “things themselves” must be likened to the “Sea of Beauty” (Allegory 2). Though the “things themselves” are described in the Allegory as “men and other things,” I don’t believe Plato meant for his readers to believe that men and by extension their bodies are