Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [76]
I shall not cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to any one of you whom I happen to meet: “Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?” (Apology, lines 29d-e)
For Socrates, philosophy was not a purely theoretical discipline reserved for specialists, and it didn’t aim to describe the metaphysical structure of reality. It was a kind of work on the self, the purpose of which was better living, not just deeper understanding. This was something new for Western thought. Socrates had shifted the focus of philosophy from the nature and origins of the cosmos to the good life, from metaphysics to ethics. As Cicero (106-43 B.C.) put this point, Socrates “brought down philosophy from heaven to earth.”
The image that Plato uses to illustrate the life transformation that Socrates sought to achieve with his students is known as “the Allegory of the Cave.” At the beginning of Republic, Book VII, Socrates asks Glaucon and Adeimantus to imagine people who have lived in an underground dwelling since childhood. Their legs and necks are chained so that they must look forward. Their light comes from a fire burning above and behind them. Between them and the fire, “puppeteers” walk along a wall carrying wooden and stone models of all sorts, producing an elaborate play of shadows on the cave wall directly in front of the prisoners.
It’s a system of thought control, and it couldn’t be more effective. The prisoners can’t turn their heads, so they don’t see the puppeteers. From their perspective, the play of shadows in front of them is the extent of reality. They literally cannot imagine that anyone is manipulating the images they see, or that the world they consider so real is just an illusion, a bit of theater used by the powers that be to hold their minds captive. From their perspective, such a possibility is as unimaginable as the color red is to a person blind from birth. They are “at home” in their shadow world. It is their everyday environment. To them nothing could be more real. They are so comfortable, in fact, they resist anyone who comes to free them.
When one of the prisoners is unshackled and turned around to face the fire, his first reaction is to return to the comforts of the shadows. The light of the fire is blinding, and the new kind of objects is disorienting. None of it makes any sense. Instead of appreciating his newfound freedom, he is overwhelmed with a longing for the tranquility and familiarity of the shadows that he understands. Everything changes, however, when his liberation is completed and he is taken out of the cave into the light of day. At that point he can finally understand that the cave is a prison. He sees it in a new light, as if for the first time. Suddenly his old world collapses. He has no desire to return to it. What used to be so important suddenly seems revolting. He pities his old friends who are still lost in the dark. They attach meaning and significance to the shadows, but it’s all a lie. Their desires and beliefs are manufactured through and through.
This is where the story of Socrates reappears. Although he would rather not bother, the freed cave dweller returns to the cave to liberate his old friends and neighbors. It isn’t easy for him, however. The transition from the sunlight outside to the darkness inside is as blinding as the original journey in the opposite direction. At first he stumbles and struggles to see things clearly, and the others think he has gone mad. But when his eyes readjust to the dark, he can see better than ever before, and much better than anyone else in the cave. He is in an ideal position to help the other prisoners, but they despise