Panel Title
The Rhetoric Of Plato’s Cave
Location
Kardinaal Mercierzaal, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven
Start Date
2-13-2014 10:15 AM
End Date
2-13-2014 11:00 AM
Abstract
If the Allegory of the Cave is, as one scholar has recently put it, the “most compelling” (Schofield) of all Plato’s images, the image is nevertheless deeply confusing. There is no scholarly consensus on even the most basic questions of interpretation, and Glaucon himself finds it “strange.” What, then, makes the Cave so compelling? Although scholars have not tackled this question head-on, they have indirectly suggested some answers. The imagery is “memorable” (Annas); the allegory functions protreptically to motivate the emotions (Destrée); the Cave aims to elicit the “shock of disillusionment about current Athenian moral values” in its audience (Schofield); the image “instills dissatisfaction with our current level of experience” (Lear). Without taking issue with any of these suggestions, I would like to take a different approach that looks closely at the way that Plato has Socrates present the image. The Cave could have been told in many different ways, and not all of them would have been as powerful as the version Plato offers. Plato has crafted Socrates’ narrative in particular ways – for example, so that the narrative does not simply describe, but asks Glaucon to draw inferences from the material. The image also includes its own interpretation – or rather successive stages of interpretation. This paper will examine the specific ways Plato has structured Socrates’ narrative and argue ultimately that the “telling” of the Cave itself performs a rhetorical ascent out of the cave. The Cave narrative compels by giving its audience an experience analogous to the very thing it describes.
The Rhetoric Of Plato’s Cave
Kardinaal Mercierzaal, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven
If the Allegory of the Cave is, as one scholar has recently put it, the “most compelling” (Schofield) of all Plato’s images, the image is nevertheless deeply confusing. There is no scholarly consensus on even the most basic questions of interpretation, and Glaucon himself finds it “strange.” What, then, makes the Cave so compelling? Although scholars have not tackled this question head-on, they have indirectly suggested some answers. The imagery is “memorable” (Annas); the allegory functions protreptically to motivate the emotions (Destrée); the Cave aims to elicit the “shock of disillusionment about current Athenian moral values” in its audience (Schofield); the image “instills dissatisfaction with our current level of experience” (Lear). Without taking issue with any of these suggestions, I would like to take a different approach that looks closely at the way that Plato has Socrates present the image. The Cave could have been told in many different ways, and not all of them would have been as powerful as the version Plato offers. Plato has crafted Socrates’ narrative in particular ways – for example, so that the narrative does not simply describe, but asks Glaucon to draw inferences from the material. The image also includes its own interpretation – or rather successive stages of interpretation. This paper will examine the specific ways Plato has structured Socrates’ narrative and argue ultimately that the “telling” of the Cave itself performs a rhetorical ascent out of the cave. The Cave narrative compels by giving its audience an experience analogous to the very thing it describes.