This week we tackle one of philosophy’s most famous allegories, Plato’s cave. Something we have often alluded to on the show but never actually bothered to sit down and explain. The allegory of the cave gets us to question our access to knowledge and even the very reality of the physical world.
We first set the scene for the Cave by first trying to answer “how is it that we come to recognise everyday objects? For example Donald Duck, a rubber duck and a living duck are very different things. Yet some how we still recognise them as “ducks”. Plato would answer this by appealing to what he called the “forms”. Behind every concept or object in our visible world there is an unseen reality, like a blueprint from which we recognise everything from. This discussion of the forms leave this deep into a discussion about the Cave. Do we ever escape the cave and join the realm of the forms? Listen and find out! Nicola is co host.
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