Even if Whitehead may have been exaggerating the fact is that Plato is one of the most important Western philosophers and in order to understand Western thought we need to have some understanding of Plato.

Plato wrote many works which can be divided into three chronological groups:

1. The first group were the Socratic dialogues. In these Plato was more or less retold the thoughts of his teachers especially his great teacher Socrates. This group contains Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Ion, Hippias Minor, Euthyphro, and Lysis
2. Then came middle dialogues which include the Republic which is his best known work. By this time Plato came into his own and was using Socrates as a mouthpiece for his ideas. Other works of this period include such great dialogues as Phaedo, Protagoras, the Symposium and the Phædrus
3. Lastly come the later dialogues. By this time like all great philosophers Plato was reexamining his own work and perhaps thanks to the influence of his great student Aristotle, Plato challenges his own "theory of forms".

The myth of the cave appears in book six of the Republic. Here is my version of it (from memory and changed slightly but the message is there):

• Imagine some people who have lived in an underground cave all their lives. They are shackled in way that they cannot move so that they can only see the far wall of the cave facing them.
  Behind and above them a fire blazes so the prisoners can only see their own shadows and the shadows of objects that their keepers are passing in front of the fire as puppets. Some of them talk, others remain silent.
  The prisoners can only hear the echoes of their own and their keepers voices. Now, would they not suppose that the shadows and the echoes were reality?
  Further more, imagine that one of these prisoners manages to free himself. At first he is blinded by the light as he turns around and his eyes have not acclimated to the brightness he sees.
  Then he notices the fire above and the keepers with their puppets. Slowly he gets his courage and starts the arduous task of climbing the cave side to where the fire is. After coming to the keepers he manages to creep past them and gets to the cave mouth.
  Wow! The blue sky, trees and such a brightness up there. He can never look at the brightness directly but eventually comes to a lake and manages to look at the beauty of the sun reflected in the water. He is so tempted to remain where he is.
  But, he remembers his friends, his fellow prisoners. The return journey is just as difficult and hazardous but eventually he gets home and starts telling the truth to anyone who would listen.
  Of course, the people don’t want to know. In fact, if he insists on telling them about the real truth he is called insane and even then if he does not cease in trying to remove their illusions, the prisoners kill him.

The implication is that the philosopher (the lover of wisdom) who sees the truth is executed like Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, Al Halge (the Sufi mystic).

I’ll write more about this at a later date. At this time I just want to introduce the idea. Also, as far as I’m concerned the movie. Matrix (the brilliant original one not the stupid sequels), was about this difference between the ultimate truth and the phenomenal world.

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