masters. The one dragged out of the cave can first make out reflections of real things (math-
ematical or geometrical thought (dianoia) in the third section of the line); then, he can see or
understand the highest things in themselves (the highest section of the forms oreide). Finally, by
turning to the heavens, he can see the sun (or the Good) which is the source of all things. Men who
experience such an education do not desire to turn back and“mind the business of human beings”
(517a); they would appear ridiculous if compelled to contest the identity of the various shadows
with those who never left the cave. Such an education, Socrates continues, is not like pouring
knowledge into a soul that does not have it; instead, the educational journey is a“turning around”
(stpherein) from that which is coming into being and passing away to look at and see that“which
is”(518d).
On the one hand, Socrates overtly uses this“image”of the cave to explicate and further develop
his description of the divided line by identifying corresponding images and inserting a sense of
motion in the educational journey. Yet, on the other hand, as an explanation of the divided line, the
allegory of the cave is not always helpful and raises many more subsidiary questions than it cla-
rifies. Why, for example, are the material things of the visible world in the divided line–which
included everything that grows–reduced in the human world of the cave to artifacts made of stone,
wood, and material? What does Socrates mean by suggesting that the city is pure artifice and devoid
of all other living things? Or, as Cowboy Plato pointed out, because the allegory is an“image”or a
picture painted on our mind, is the act of thinking through or figuring out Plato’s allegories akin to
the contest of naming the shadows on the cave wall? If so, does this make Plato, and other phi-
losophers puppet masters? Hence, like the analogy of the ship of state, the allegory of the cave both
reinforces and elucidates his complex dialectic, while simultaneously introducing crucial questions
that point in new directions.
These questions highlight the importance of storytelling or“picture-making”(eikasia) in how
human beings think, talk, and relate to the world and each other. The allegory of the cave paints a
picture of how Plato understands“images”within the uncomfortable and even potentially
dangerous journey of human education. Importantly, this image-making is not confined to the
“beginning”of education, like the image of“images”in the divided line. Socrates’discussion of the
cave and divided line is part of a broader discussion of the imaginary city in speech. And this
discussion of an imaginary city, because the interlocutor Socrates is narrating the conversation in
theRepublic, is essentially a story of what was said the previous night to an unnamed, imaginary
individual. Of course, the entire dialog form is an“image”; it is Plato’s“picture-making”of an
imaginary conversation which took place at least forty years before he wrote it, on the night of a
festival of Bendis around 421BCE.
Therefore, although Socrates places imagination at the bottom of the divided line or at the
beginning of the educational journey, he uses image-making consistently throughout his dialogic
conversations. As with the dismissive comments about poetry or storytelling noted earlier,
Socrates’presentation of images, and image-making may be a further example of Socratic irony.^38
From the perspective that the dialog presents“Socrates in action,”his storytelling or image-making
is not simply a“step”in the journey that is overcome with the capacity for rational abstraction;
similarly, image-making is not dichotomous, or separate from, but part of, and essential to, his use
of rational, and abstract logic. Platonic images appear in those moments of blindness as we adjust to
innovative ways of thinking that challenge cherished opinions of what we believe to be true, but
have never examined. Stories also appear essential, as is found in the image of ship of state, as
the“connective tissue”that mediates human understanding between the philosopher’s abstraction
of“what is”and the pilot’s knowledge of the world of coming into being and passing away.
Importantly, Socrates employs“image-making”or stories in the manner suggested in the analogy of
the ship of state (488a–b): his dialogical conversations bring together many things as a“mixture,”
like painters who make“goat-deer”or other half-creatures. Perhaps Plato’s integral relatedness of
storytelling and reason is less surprising when it is recalled that the Greek termlogos, although
Poetic Questions in the Socratic Method 17