The answers from my friend Justin
wow seems it's a more concrete explanation especially using that cat shadow example here
1. Trying for answering the question: What are the Shadows?
The passage before this one Plato is trying to setup his concepts of knowledge so that he can help define how Guardians (one of Plato's three types of people in society) come into being through evolving to a higher plane of knowledge. So Plato uses a metaphorical depiction showing his ideas on knowledge.
So to illustrate this he wants you to imagine someone being inside the dark depths of a cave. There is a fire for a light source but you can only look away from it at a wall. Now imagine that there are a few things closer to the fire but behind you. Let's say a cat for an instance. Now you are not allowed to turn around. You can only observe the shadow of the cat. You do not know if the cat is black or yellow, if it has eyes or not, or if it has a mouth or that it uses it to eat food. The shadow is the only information you can gain from your senses. You do not know the cat's true form so to speak. So your knowledge is limited and this is all that you are capable of knowing from that. These shadows are a weak image or "Form" as Plato may call it of something more than what you can understand at that time.
Now for the second level of knowledge and understanding. You are allowed to actually turn around. You are dazed from the glare and change in what you can perceive now. Now you observe that the Shadows actually were cast by an three dimensional object, has fur, a mouth, and eyes. You can observe it catch a mouse. But the firelight does not allow us to percieve the cat's truer self and colors. Firelight is not as pure as daylight and the out doors. The true world is far bigger than the confines of a mere cave.
This is where Plato engages for his third step in understanding and knowledge. He forces the person outside of the cave. Then he describes how this can be an extremely stunning experience to the person's senses for the first time. It's like exposing a cave person from ancient times to the modern world of wonders. This is the stage that Plato says his regular philosophers only can achieve. They master the realm of understanding that is limited to the human senses. Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Here it is possible to learn a lot about the different things that inhabit the world.
This is where the evolution of the academic subjects start coming in to play more. To Plato, there is kind of a hierarchy to subjects that are taught in the schools of the time. Music, Art, Mathematics, Astronomy, and Philosophy. The latter topics being higher in the hierarchy because they require learning through methods other than observation, such as thought problems and the like. To Plato this was on a higher plane of knowledge and understanding. The ability to comprehend non physical concepts: ideas, morality, etc. This he represented by having some people make it to being exposed to know the Sun and how it truly illuminates everything and because of that being the ultimate truth in perception which is associated with being the ultimate Good in morality as well. These few are what Plato calls the Guardians and only a select few make it this far, a leap beyond the regular senses and standard human understanding.
2. "Coming into Being" implies that there is an element of change from the fact that you started at a lesser part of existence to a higher form of it. A progression of moving forward. Being by itself may imply that you are already at the desired state or at the previous state. The difference is that you cannot change or go from one to the other. "Coming into being" in this instance refers to the process of going through the cave and coming out into the sun. "Being" by itself means you're at one particular point in the cave story and cannot go any further.
3. Not sure if I can fully get what they are doing with the different types of mathematics here and how they are relating them to opinion and imagination. I think they are trying to classify some of the subjects as being more factual and reason based versus belief and faith aspects. This might be a little bit for the realm of meta-science. ;-)
4. Why is the book called "The Republic"
When Plato started out this book, he was out to put out a better concept of Justice than what existed in his time. To do that he had to convince the people of his time represented by Polemarchus and Cephalus. To do this Plato had to envision what later could be called a Utopia. (an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. The word was first used in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More) that people would exist in and be happy and that everything is as it should be. No need to break rules for personal gain. This "Happy Place" Plato coined it as a Republic. But the unique thing about this is that Plato felt this could only be achieved with a specific structure in which the people naturally fell into 4 classes and that they are happy in them and stay in them for the better of society as a whole. The idea of "Freedom of Choice" seems to be sacrificed in this view, Plato does view that change is possible shown through education, but that people must accept which class they 'naturally' belong to.
Whoa
Justin :-)
Another book recommended by Justin
Interesting book read for philosophy:
A World of Ideas: A Dictionary of Important Theories, Concepts, Beliefs and Thinkers
By: Chris Rohmann
Lol
