Perhaps the most famous allegory in philosophy is Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which Plato, via Socrates, compares people who lack philosophical training to prisoners who have spent their entire lives in an underground cave and don't realise that there is a vast world beyond what they perceive. The Allegory of the Cave does not quite cut it as a myth, insofar as it lacks the sacred dimension that is the core of myth. But Plato did also write 'proper' myths into his Socratic dialogues, thereby - and unusually for the time - bridging the sharp divide between mythos and logos: between storytelling and reasoned discourse.
Plato didn't write dry analytical arguments, but lively fictional or semi-fictional dialogues, making him one of the most readable of all philosophers. His earlier dialogues feature Socrates questioning one or more people about the meaning of a particular concept, such as beauty, courage, or piety, in order to expose the contradictions in their assumptions and provoke a reappraisal of the concept - a debating method that has become known as the method of elenchus ('refutation') or the Socratic method. Into his dialogues Plato weaved myths, allegories, and metaphors. For instance, he famously compared the soul (aka mind - psyche) to a charioteer in a chariot pulled by two winged horses, one tame and noble (reason), the other wild and unruly (passion). All of his dialogues, with the single exception of the Crito, contain animal images, and Socrates himself is variously compared to a gadfly, a swan, a torpedo ray, a snake, a stork, and a fawn and outside the animal realm, to an empty jar filled with other people's ideas, and to a midwife, who helps pregnant souls give birth to wisdom. This is the voice of Meno, a young mercenary general with a philosophical bent, in Plato's Meno:
この記事は Philosophy Now の August/September 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Philosophy Now の August/September 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.