Chapter 12 – Soul, Mind, Body – Plato’s Metaphors of the Sun, the Chariot and the Divided Line

Metaphor of Sun

Sun is the best Illuminating Object in the world. The illumination is Good. Good, as per Plato, is God. Hence Sun is God.

Absolute Good which always illumines like Sun is God. Sun is the nature’s ultimate reality like God.

Illuminations on the world objects will help us to know Good and Bad. Hence Sun helps us to know good from bad.

Eye is a sense organ. It cannot operate on its own. It needs a medium, namely light, to operate. The strongest and best source of light is the Sun. With such a source of light, one can discern objects clearly.

Intellects of the person can distinguish good and bad with such light. Intellects with getting supports from their rationalism and realism in the form of illumination from the sun rays can easily apprehends the dark side of the object which is bad. The dark side of any object which is bad is purely due to clouded and confused shifting opinions of the minds lacking reasons. Such lighting of the objects by the ever radiant rays of sun will help the humans’ intellects to choose the good from the bad.

Good, as per Plato, always shines and illumines and Bad always is shrouded with darkness. Again, Good is Truth and Bad is Untruth.

How does the metaphor of Sun fit into the allegory of cave as portrayed by Plato?

The freed slave, who was accustomed to the pitch darkness and shadowy lights, could not bear the sudden illumination of the sun rays outside on his coming out from the cave. Slowly he became aware that the reality was outside the cave and that all along his taking of all illusory images reflected in the cave wall and the echoes thereon as real were all irrational and unreal. He could realize his besieged ignorance due the darkness of the cave inside. Realization had dawned on him only after seeing the sun light outside. Having realized the truth, the freed slave had become a philosopher. As a philosopher, it was his bounden duty to break the shackles of other prisoners and to free them with all his powers of intellect, arguments and knowledge. As along as there were people to seek the comforts of the cave lives, the process was never ending. There would always be philosophers like Socrates born again and again to save such people. In the process, such philosophers might have to pay a heavy prize of even sacrificing their own lives for the sake of their principles.

The Metaphor of Chariot

Metaphor of Chariot is used by Plato to explain his views of the human soul. Soul is depicted as chariot and Intellect as Charioteer. Chariot is driven by two horses – one white and other black. White horse is right to the chariot and black horse to left. White horse represents rational or moral impulses or the positive side of human nature. Black horse, on the other hand, represents irrational or appetitive impulses or the negative side of human nature. In short, white horse is noble and black horse is ignoble.

Aim of charioteer is to move the chariot towards enlightenment. The charioteer has to control the black horse from drifting and also to direct the white horse towards the chosen path.

The right-hand white horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose; his color is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honor and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only.

The other black one is a crooked lumbering animal; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark color, with grey eyes and the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.

In short, while white horse is guided by the charioteer's word and by reason and is obedient having no necessity to use the whip, the black horse is not guided by the charioteer’s word and is most disobedient even to the whips.

The chariot lacks power. Half the chariot's energy comes from the white
horse. Lacking this, the chariot cannot ascend to the heavens. The noble white horse
is there, stamping his feet, eager to do the work for which he was bred. The ignoble
black horse is there to block the movements of the chariot to enlightened path.
Chariot, Charioteer, two horses are all winged. Each soul has its own chariot. Only a
few souls succeed by going through great circuits to reach the seats of gods and such
souls become enlightened.

The push and pull of black horses in spite of the help got by white horses force the
souls to lose its wings and such souls are pulled down to earth. These are falls for
such souls from enlightenment.

Such souls are to born again.

Such fallen souls are incarnated into one of nine kinds of person depending upon how
much truth they beheld. In order of decreasing levels of truths in the souls, the souls
are borne again in the following categories:

1.Philosophers
2.Kings and Leaders
3.Politicians and Businessmen
4.Physicians
5.Prophets
6.Poets and Artists
7.Craftsmen and Farmers
8.Demagogues.
9.Tyrants

Metaphor of the Divided Line

Divided Line is to teach basic philosophical views about four stages of cognitions.

There are visible world and invisible or intelligent world.

Visible world has two segments –

1.Opinion or Belief or Imagination or Shadows.
2.Thinking or Conjecture about Physical Things.

Invisible world or Intelligent world has two segments –

1.Reasoning
2.Knowledge or Wisdom.

____________________________________________
A B C D E

Draw a line AE. Cut AE into two unequal parts – say AC and CE. Divide each of AC and CE again in the same proportions.

In this BC = CD and AB : BC : : CD : DE.
If AB = 5 and BC = 10, then CD =10. By the equation, 5 : 10 : : 10 : DE.
Then, DE = 20.

Here AC is Visible World and CE is Invisible World or Intelligent World.
Visible World is Cave Life and Invisible World is Sun Life. While AB is the lowest, DE is the highest or the Forms of Good. While Cave Life is Bad, Sun Life is Good.
In short, AB = Lowest, BC = Lower, CD = Higher and DE = Highest.

There are four types of human knowledge:

Imaginary Knowledge (AB), Real World Knowledge (BC), Scientific, mathematical or Logical Knowledge (CD) and Spiritual Knowledge (DE) in that order of lowest to highest.

One needs to move from the cave life to sun life i.e. from the lowest to highest i.e. from AB to DE. This is possible, only if the human being realizes that mere opinions about shadows of real objects or mere thinking of real objects as such will not lead the souls to reasoning with the illumination of sun light. Such soul should journey further up with the illuminations got by the reasoning to realize the goodness of forms thereon.

Realizations or Enlightenments made possible for the souls by the Sun Light shining outside the darkness of the cave are real salvations for the human beings.

In our next issue, the following three metaphors will be dealt with: Myth of ER, Ring of Gyges and Ship of State.