Appendix 7.
(470) [Plato and the idea of being]
These observations did not escape Plato, whose noble mind raised him high above ordinary people. He notes (and he himself experienced) that talking about things found in the human spirit to someone who has not seen them gives rise to ridicule and to the accusation of being a dreamer. For this reason, his hidden or esoteric teaching (and that of the ancients before him) was imparted only to a few initiates - giving it to the multitude would only have invited contempt. The idea of being, the purest of all ideas, is the last and most difficult idea to be noticed. Some passages of Plato make me think either that he saw this idea but, finding it too difficult, dealt with it only superficially, or as Dante thinks (Inferno, 16: 124), presented it under the guise of images and only in passing:
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No truth that seems a lie |
I am speaking to a Christian world. I can therefore rightly presume well of people and address them openly about these difficult things. However, in order not to leave unproven what I said about Plato, let me quote some passages of this great author which confirm my judgment. In many places, Plato compares the mind with the eye which sees only by means of the sun's rays. This light, which for Plato illumines the mind but is lacking to the senses, is the idea of being or, in his words, of ens. I say the idea of ens because according to Plato this light comes from God (the ens). In the Republic (book 6), however, he clearly states that this light is not God, a distinction which Platonists have abused. He says, 'The sun we see is not the sun itself,' and then argues as follows:
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Socrates: Our eyes see whenever they are turned to things whose colours are illumined and manifested by daylight. But when we look at things in the dark, we see only vaguely and obscurely; our eyes seem almost totally blind, as if there were no pure sight in them. |
In the next dialogue (book 7), he uses an image to show how difficult it is for us to rise from sensible things to the vision of intelligible things and to ens. He imagines a straight cave deep underground. At one end, there is an opening where a light shines directly to the other end. There are people in the cave bound in such a position that they can never turn their heads or backs to see the opening and the light; they can look only at the end wall. At the opening to the cave, vases and statues of people and animals are placed in such a way that they cast their shadow on this wall. As a result only the shadows can be seen by the captives, who think that nothing else exists except the shadows. If they heard speech, they might think the shadows were talking. But if they were released from their bonds and taken out into the unaccustomed light, they would at first complain about the novelty and the brightness of the light. Later, as they became used to the situation, and came to appreciate the value of their new state, of their vision of what is true and of light, they would no longer wish to return underground to their prison. But if one of them did go back (and returning into the darkness would cause difficulties) and while down there
began to speak about the shadows on the wall to those who had never been loosed from their chains and if, while still blinded and not yet accustomed to the great darkness (something that requires time), he gave his opinion about the shadows, would those wretches not ridicule him? Would they not scorn him as someone who after leaving has returned with his sight impaired? Would they not tell him he must never attempt to leave the cave? And would they not immediately kill anyone who tried to undo their bonds and lead them out?
This is the lot of wise people who open the eyes of others to truths they cannot understand! Plato concludes:
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Let us suppose that someone with good sense remembers that the human eye can change in two ways and for two reasons: by passing from light into darkness and from darkness into light. In the same way he will notice how the human spirit can be affected when disturbed and darkened in its discernment. Less inclined to mock, he will first investigate whether the person is overcome again by darkness as he comes from life in greater light or, when emerging from abysmal ignorance into brilliant light, faints before tremendous splendour. He will applaud those undergoing the second experience, and consider their life blessed; he will feel compassion for those suffering the first experience. And if he wants to mock, he will mock the first group less than those who have descended from the light above |
Plato concludes with a passage very relevant to my purpose:
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The eye cannot turn away from darkness to a shining object unless the whole body turns with the eye. Similarly we must with our whole mind turn from generation (that is, from things of sense) to what is called ens, so that our gaze can pass to what is brightest of all. |
According to Plato, therefore, ens is the lamp illuminating all other things.
The reader should compare Plato's cave with Locke's camera obscura, as Reid and Stewart do (Éléments de la Philosophie, etc., vol. 1, c. 1, sect. 1). What a difference! Locke introduces the dark room to explain ideas, which he confuses with sensations; Plato introduces his cave to show the difference between shadows and reality, between sensations and ideas. To consider Locke's room on a par with Plato's cave, is like comparing a human head with a lump of wood because both are round!