El significado político de la alegoría de la caverna de Platón

• Autores: Gabriel Zamosc
• Localización: Ideas y valores: Revista Colombiana de Filosofía, ISSN-e 0120-0062, Vol. 66, Nº. 165, 2017, págs. 237-266
• Idioma: español
• DOI: 10.15446/ideasyvalores.v66n165.55201
• Títulos paralelos:
  • The Political Significance of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    El artículo sostiene que la caverna de Platón es fundamentalmente una alegoría política, no epistemológica, y que solo así podremos apreciar la relación que guarda con las imágenes del sol y de la línea. Sobre la base de evidencia textual, se ponen en duda las dos hipótesis principales sobre las que se funda el esfuerzo por encontrar un paralelo epistemológico entre la caverna y la línea: que los prisioneros representan a la humanidad en general, y que la caverna simboliza el mundo visible de la experi-encia corriente, mientras el mundo fuera de esta representa el reino de las ideas. La suspensión de estos supuestos posibilita una lectura que resalta los temas culturales y políticos que están en juego en esta famosa alegoría.

  • English

    The article argues that Plato’s cave is fundamentally a political and not an episte-mological allegory, and that only if we see it thus can we understand its relation to the images of the sun and the line. On the basis of textual evidence, the article raises questions regarding the main hypotheses grounding the effort to find an epistemo-logical parallel between the cave and the line: that the prisoners represent humanity in general, and that the cave symbolizes the visible world of everyday experience, while the world outside the cave represents the realm of ideas. The suspension of these assumptions makes possible a reading that highlights the cultural and politi-cal issues at stake in this famous allegory.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Adam, J. The Republic of Plato.2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902.
  • Aeschylus. The Complete Greek Tragedies, Volume I: Aeschylus. Eds. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: The University of Chicago...
  • Annas, J. An Introduction to Plato’s Republic.New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
  • Aristophanes. Aristophanes, 3: The Suits, Clouds, Birds. Eds. David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie. Trans. Greg Delanty, Carol Poster, and Paul...
  • Bloom, A. The Republic of Plato: Translated with Notes and an Interpretative Essay. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
  • Brann, E. T. H. The Music of the Republic.Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004.
  • Burnyeat, M. F. “Culture and Society in Plato’s Republic.” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997....
  • Cross, R. C., and Woozley, A. D. Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964.
  • Ferguson, A. S. “Plato’s Simile of Light. Part I. The Similes of the Sun and the Line.” The Classical Quarterly15 (1921): 131-152.
  • Ferguson, A. S. “Plato’s Simile of Light. Part II. The Allegory of the Cave (Continued).” The Classical Quarterly16 (1922): 15-28.
  • Ferguson, A. S. “Plato’s Simile of Light Again.” The Classical Quarterly28 (1934): 190-210.
  • Ferguson, J. “The Sun, Line and Cave Again.” Philosophical Quarterly13 (1963): 188-193.
  • Fine, G. Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • Gould, J. The Development of Plato’s Ethics.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955.
  • Gocer, A. “The Puppet Theatre in Plato’s Parable of the Cave.” The Classical Journal95 (2000): 119-129.
  • Hall, D. “Interpreting Plato’s Cave as an Allegory of the Human Condition.” Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 14 (1980):...
  • Homer. The Odyssey of Homer. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
  • Howland, J. “The Cave Image and the Problem of Place: The Sophist, the Poet, and the Philosopher.” Dionysius10 (1986): 21-55.
  • Howland, J. The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy.New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.
  • Irwin, T. Plato’s Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
  • Joseph, H. W. B. Knowledge and the Good in Plato’s Republic.London: Oxford University Press, 1948.
  • Karasmanis, V. “Plato’s Republic: The Line and the Cave.” Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 21 (1988): 147-171.
  • Lidz, J. W. “Reflections on and in Plato’s Cave.” Interpretation21 (1993): 115-134.
  • Malcom, J. “The Line and the Cave.” Phronesis7 (1962): 38-45.
  • Malcom, J. “The Cave Revisited.” The Classical Quarterly31(1981): 60-68. Morrison, J.S. “Two Unresolved Difficulties in the Line and Cave.”...
  • Murphy, N.R. “The ‘Simile of Light’ in Plato’s Republic.” The Classical Quarterly26(1932): 93-102.
  • Nettleship, R. Lectures on the Republic of Plato.London: Macmillan and Company Limited, 1901.
  • Robinson, R. Plato’s Earlier Dialectic.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953.
  • Pappas, N. Plato and the Republic.London: Routledge Philosophy Guide Books, 1995.
  • Plato. “The Republic.” Plato Complete Works. Eds. John M. Cooper and Douglas S. Hutchinson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997....
  • Raven, J. E. “Sun, Divided Line and Cave.” Classical Quarterly3 (1953): 22-32.
  • Sallis, J. Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
  • Sayers, S.Plato’s Republic: An Introduction.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
  • Seery, J.E. “Politics as Ironic Community: On the Themes of Descent and Return in Plato’s Republic.” Political Theory16.2 (1988): 229-256.
  • Smith, N. “How the Prisoners in Plato’s Cave are ‘Like Us’.” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy13 (1997): 187-204.
  • Smith, W. A. Ancient Education.New York: Philosophical Library, 1955.
  • Strang, C. “Plato’s Analogy of the Cave.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4 (1986): 19-34.
  • Sze, C. P. “Eikasia and Pistisin Plato’s Cave Allegory.” The Classical Quarterly27 (1977): 127-138.
  • White, N. P. A Companion to Plato’s Republic.Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979.
  • Wilberding, J. “Prisoners and Puppeteers in the Cave.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 27 (2004):117-139.
  • Wood, R. E. “Image, Structure and Content: On a Passage in Plato’s Republic.” The Review of Metaphysics 40.3 (1987): 495-514.