Plato and Machiavelli
By: C.B. Rodgers, for The Paper Store - 
January 2000

    Plato looked at the world and saw nothing but change; he wondered how it was possible to know anything at all when everything is in motion and change. Plato resolved that problem through presuming an unchanging world of intelligible Forms or Ideas of which the world is nothing but a less-than-perfect copy. Further, the best possible human state, one which may not be within reach of many people, is that of being "ruled" by the best possible human desire, namely that of knowing, and living in the light of, objective ethical truth, or the Form of the Good. Therefore, a moral life serves others in its manifestation of the best of possible human natures. In fact, he notes: "Unlimited self-assertion is not a source of strength in any association formed for a common purpose, belief, or accomplishment. Injustice will have the same effect within the individual soul, dividing a man against himself and destroying his individual unity of purpose. The various desires and impulses in a man's nature will be in conflict, if each asserts an unlimited claim to satisfaction" (The Republic, I, iv, 352).

   "The Allegory of the Cave" from Part III, Chapter XXV, of The Republic is the most commonly known of the examples Plato used to make Socrates’ point (or vice versa). Politicians, business leaders, modern philosophers, social scientists and more have used "The Cave" to emphasize any number of points they want to make about illusion and reality. Its opening lines declare Plato's purpose to "illustrate the degrees in which our nature may be enlightened or unenlightened." One of the most significant reasons that interest in Plato has persisted for 2,500 years is that his dialogues are multifaceted and complex. Plato's image of the prisoners in the cave in the "Allegory of the Cave" is that the prisoners, who are chained and fettered in a dark cave, can only see the shadows cast on the wall of the cave. Eventually, one of the prisoners is freed from bondage and learns that nothing is what it had seemed to be. Socrates makes it very clear that the prisoners in the "Allegory of the Cave" are representative of all humans. Just as the prisoners are surrounded by darkness, humanity is "in the dark," or to phrase it differently, in a state of ignorance. Moving out of the cave and into the brilliant light of the sun demonstrates the rising up of the soul from a state of ignorance to a state of illumination. 

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