ABSTRACT
Plato’s writings do not expound a coherent philosophical system; his thought changed and developed, with the result that later Platonists attempting to systematise it had to select from contradictory ideas, and often added ideas of their own which Plato would never have accepted. The one central belief common to Plato and his followers (though the terminology may differ) is that of the two worlds. The first, which is intelligible or apprehended by the intellect, is the world of Ideas or Forms, the archetypal patterns of everything existing in the inferior material world. It is the world of Being, stable, eternal, immutable, perfect (1). The second, which is sensible or apprehended by the senses, is not real in itself; its value is in the fact that it is a copy of the real world of Forms. It is the world of Becoming, always subject to change. The human soul comes from the first world and is trapped in the body in the second, from which it seeks to escape (2, 7). The return or ascent of the soul to the world of Forms is the subject of much of Plato’s writing, but the way in which the ascent is described varies. In the Symposium the two worlds are united by Eros (Love). Love of the beauty of one human being leads to love of physical beauty in general, then to moral beauty, then to intellectual beauty, until finally the Idea of Beauty is reached (1). In the Republic the goal is the Idea of Good, and the ascent undertaken by the intellect is far more arduous. Socrates (Plato’s teacher and the chief speaker in his dialogues) outlines a long and rigorous scheme for educating the Guardians of the hypothetical republic. The difficulty of the ascent to the world of Ideas and the problem of explaining the relation between the two worlds to untrained minds is illustrated by the allegory of the cave (Republic VII). Life in the second, material world is represented by prisoners in a cave, chained so that they cannot move their heads, who spend their time watching shadows cast on a wall by a fire behind them. One of them (representing the philosopher) is forcibly released and made to see his ‘reality’ for what it is. He is then dragged out of the cave into the sunlight (the first world), where painfully he is able first to discern objects and finally to look straight at the sun itself (the Idea of Good). Having learnt the truth, he returns to the cave to attempt to enlighten his fellow prisoners, who refuse to believe him and want to kill him (Plato is here alluding to the execution of Socrates by the Athenians). This allegory not only illustrates the steps the philosopher must ascend, it also emphasises his social responsibility. The philosopher must descend the ladder from the first to the second world and apply his knowledge for social and political purposes. For life
in the second world can only be ordered harmoniously and usefully if its relation to the first is understood (6).
