Author Archives: M.A.D. Moore

Why does Plato Shackle the Neck in the Allegory of the Cave?

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Anyone who is familiar with Plato has no doubt noticed the emphasis that he places on focusing our attention on the world of being and ignoring the world of becoming.  Another way of saying this is that the present material world is less important than the everlasting eternal world of truth and Forms.

In this post, I want to point out similar imagery which is used in three different dialogues, all concerned with the ultimate apprehension of reality.  In these dialogues, Plato uses the imagery of the head, when it is free and unencumbered, as a symbol for the ability to properly see the intelligible realm, the heavenly realm, the realm of reality.

Let us first look at the Phaedrus.  As Socrates has narrated about the life of the gods, he next wishes to tell us about the life of mortals.  He does so, using the framing metaphor of the charioteer and horses as a stand-in for the soul.

And this is the life of the gods.  But of the other souls, one follows god best and is like him and raises the head of the charioteer into the realm outside, being carried together in the revolution, and being thrown into tumult by the horses and seldom see the things that really are.  But the other soul raises it head, then lowers it, and because the horses are being forceful, it sees some things and other things it does not.  All the other souls are striving to follow the region above, but are unable… (Phaedrus 248a1-e1). 1

Thus, the raising of the head is symbolic of the ability to see truths and real being that transcends the mundane and insubstantial.

In the Phaedo we see a similar line of thought.  A description has just been given of the earth, how it is much larger than we imagine it to be.  Here the comparison is to a fish, if it could lift its head above the water and see what is happening upon the earth.

By weakness and stupidity we are not able to pass through to the farthest aether.  Since, if someone were to go to the heights of the earth or having become winged, took flight, he would lift his head and look around, just as here the fish in the sea can lift their heads to see the things on earth, so someone could see the things there [in the realm above] (Phaedo 109e1-5). 2

It is helpful to keep in mind the kind of philosophical power and freedom which is represented by the head.  With the Phaedo and Phaedrus in the background, a certain famous passage in the Republic, the allegory of the cave, becomes enriched.  Here also the dignity of the head, being the repository of sight, the noblest of the senses, is emphasized, but by negation.  It is not the freedom of the head here, but its imprisonment that merits mentioning.

Being in this [cave] since childhood in shackles around their legs and necks, so that they remain in place only to see straight before them, but they are unable to turn their heads about in a circle because of the bond (Republic 514a5-b2). 3

The prisoner in the cave, ignorant of what is happening outside the cave, has his neck restrained in such a way that he cannot even move it.  It seems plausible to believe the main purpose of the shackles around his neck are not meant to keep him in one place, after all the leg shackles, already described, will do that.  Rather, the purpose of a bond around his neck is meant to keep him undiscerning.  After all, this is the answer when it is asked whether such a prisoner could see through the shadows to the real world:

For how could they, if they were forced to have their necks unmoving through life? (Republic 515a9-b1). 4

 

 

1 (a)   Καὶ οὗτος μὲν θεῶν βίος· αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι ψυχαί, ἡ μὲν
ἄριστα θεῷ ἑπομένη καὶ εἰκασμένη ὑπερῆρεν εἰς τὸν ἔξω
τόπον τὴν τοῦ ἡνιόχου κεφαλήν, καὶ συμπεριηνέχθη τὴν
περιφοράν, θορυβουμένη ὑπὸ τῶν ἵππων καὶ μόγις καθορῶσα
τὰ ὄντα· ἡ δὲ τοτὲ μὲν ἦρεν, τοτὲ δ’ ἔδυ, βιαζομένων δὲ τῶν   (5)
ἵππων τὰ μὲν εἶδεν, τὰ δ’ οὔ. αἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλαι γλιχόμεναι
μὲν ἅπασαι τοῦ ἄνω ἕπονται, ἀδυνατοῦσαι δέ…

2  (e) τόν, ὑπ’ ἀσθενείας καὶ βραδυτῆτος οὐχ οἵους τε εἶναι ἡμᾶς
διεξελθεῖν ἐπ’ ἔσχατον τὸν ἀέρα· ἐπεί, εἴ τις αὐτοῦ ἐπ’ ἄκρα
ἔλθοι ἢ πτηνὸς γενόμενος ἀνάπτοιτο, κατιδεῖν <ἂν> ἀνακύ-
ψαντα, ὥσπερ ἐνθάδε οἱ ἐκ τῆς θαλάττης ἰχθύες ἀνακύ-
πτοντες ὁρῶσι τὰ ἐνθάδε, οὕτως ἄν τινα καὶ τὰ ἐκεῖ κατιδεῖν…   (5)

3 ἐν ταύτῃ ἐκ παίδων ὄντας ἐν δεσμοῖς καὶ τὰ   (5)
σκέλη καὶ τοὺς αὐχένας, ὥστε μένειν τε αὐτοὺς εἴς τε τὸ
(b) πρόσθεν μόνον ὁρᾶν, κύκλῳ δὲ τὰς κεφαλὰς ὑπὸ τοῦ δεσμοῦ
ἀδυνάτους περιάγειν…

4 Πῶς γάρ, ἔφη, εἰ ἀκινήτους γε τὰς κεφαλὰς ἔχειν ἠναγκα-
(b) σμένοι εἶεν διὰ βίου;

Knowledge of Animal Kinds is an Empirical, not a Logical, Enterprise

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As Aristotle proceeds in his criticism of division (Parts of Animals 642b ff.), he indirectly illuminates a methodological point about how the ‘branches’ of the tree of the division are supposed to work.  When we have a given animal before us, we first might determine what it has: feet.  Thus we have some first genus (footed) from which we can have differentiae.  These differentiae might be two-footed and four-footed, as in his example.

What this shows is that this process is empirically based on two counts.  The first is that  the divider is aware of a given animal in both what it possesses and what it is.  Secondly, there is a contextual awareness of the animals that are alike, in some way, to this animal.  In other words, the would-be divider knows that there are no one-footed or 563-footed animals.  How does he know this?  By experience.

There might even be an allowance on Aristotle’s part that there is a kind of wisdom of the crowd in understanding animal divisions.  He says that the “bird and the fish are named,” but adds that others “are nameless, such as the blooded and unblooded [animal] (642b14-15).  If this is so, it is reasonable to believe that Greeks, from Aristotle’s perspective, have got it right with regards to birds and fish due to generations of people having seen various birds and fish.  There is thus a kind of group empirical gathering of facts.

This emphasis on the actual is also why, it turns out, that Aristotle says there can be no privations in divisions.  “And yet it is necessary to divide by privation and the dichotomists do divide by privation. But there is no difference of privation qua privation: it is impossible for there to be a species of something that does not exist, such as footless or wingless in the same way there is of winged and footed” (PA 642b21-24 Greek follows below).  This is another indication that for Aristotle, a proper division is always empirically based, since one cannot go out and find footless animals.  What he means by this is that the animal will not have “footless” as part of its definition or essence.  Now of course, a slug, for example, is without feet, but it is also without feathers, and this hardly seems worthy of being remarked upon, much less to make it an opportunity for division.  Thus another way of stating why to exclude privation: whatever privation we choose to divide by certainly is vulnerable to the charge of being arbitrary.  For every animal is deprived of many attributes and features.

Ἔτι στερήσει μὲν ἀναγκαῖον διαιρεῖν, καὶ διαιροῦσιν οἱ
διχοτομοῦντες. Οὐκ ἔστι δὲ διαφορὰ στερήσεως ᾗ στέρησις· ἀ-
δύνατον γὰρ εἴδη εἶναι τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, οἷον τῆς ἀποδίας ἢ τοῦ
ἀπτέρου ὥσπερ πτερώσεως καὶ ποδῶν. (PA 642b21-24)

Problems with Plato: Animal Diversity and Robust Division

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Yesterday, I brought up some difficulties that occur in the first method of division presented in Aristotle’s Parts of Animals.

“Some construe the individual species by dividing the group into two differentiae.  In one way this is not easy, in another impossible.  For of some there will be only one differentia, but the other terms will be superfluous, such as in the case of footed, two-footed, footed with parted toes.  For this last differentia alone is proper” (Parts of Animals, 642b5-9)?

Before discussing the difficulties again, it must be taken into consideration, of course, that since he is embarking on a criticism of Academic methodology, any philosophical difficulties arising from this process of division might in fact owe to chinks in the armor which Aristotle himself was trying to illuminate.  He might very well be bringing some of these difficulties to light without proceeding to explain them.

A couple of the difficulties I brought up yesterday were:

“It is not true that the concept of “footed with parted toes” includes “two footed” and “footed.” viz. lizards

It is also clear from his use of the term elsewhere, that “footed with parted toes (σχιζόπους)” is not meant to designate any particular species alone, such as humans (cf. HA 593a28, concerning birds).”

A mistake one could make, at least in Aristotle’s construal of the division, is failing to recognize that at every point of the division a particular animal is being guided through each step of the division.  So, in this example, one has to have in mind a particular animal which one leads through each “gate” of the division.  There is no abstracted “two-footed,” in other words; differentiae always belong to real animals.  (This is one reason why Aristotle says shortly that there cannot be divisions of non-being, for no animals correspond to such a division.)

In fact, Aristotle will return to this division at 643b29 ff.  He says there two interesting things.  He affirms that with this method both (a) that only one differentia will be arrived at (b) it is impossible for one differentia to be adequate for a species.  In light of this he brings up the same “footed, two-footed, footed with parted toes,” tri-partite division.  Only this time he applies it to “man” (ἄνθρωπος).  He points out that man is many other things besides possessing parted toes.

Both of these judgments merge into a single criticism: there is a need for there to be multiple differentia, although the Academic method cannot allow for it, it is not so much wrong, as it is inadequate.  One reason for a need for more lines of division is that there are many homologous features in animals.  Similar body plans, parts, and functions means that there will be many animals with split-toed feet.  Because of this diversity there will be a corresponding need for a robust method of division.