Challenging Time

The prisoners in Plato's Cave have their eyes fixed on the the cave wall. Their attention is literally captured by the shadows. They cannot turn their head so they cannot see each other. Since they have been there all their lives that means they have never seen a human being!   In this conversation we will take a journey through Plato's Cave by following Pieter Lemmens' intellectual journey, his t...

"It's almost as if Plato saw Media Studies coming and invented this allegory for us to sort of set the stage from the beginning of western modernity. It's kind of uncanny how appropriate it remains. It's like it becomes more and more relevant as time passes." Today I speak with Dominic Pettman about social media, distraction and libido. About Dominic Pettman:  Dominic is University Professor of Me...

After the prisoner in Plato's cave has been released, and while they are climbing up to the surface, they no longer have the familiarity and comfort of their everyday life. But neither do they have the insight that comes with arriving at the surface. They are in between worlds, in between realities. They're in a state of profound confusion. And yet they must continue to climb upwards.   Today I sp...

The prisoners in Plato's Cave live in a world of projections. They think they see a cat, but it is actually a shadow of a statue of a cat. Is it the same for us? Do we live in a kind of illusion? And if so, what are ways to see through this illusion and lift the fog at least a little? We explore these questions with neuroscientist, Buddhist and ballet dancer Marieke van Vugt .    About Marieke:  M...

When we look at the situation of the prisoners in Plato's cave, their world is only one tiny part of all there is. They think that all that exists is the shadows on the wall. They're unaware of the fire, the way upwards, and everything at the surface. Have you ever looked at the stars at night and wondered what else is out there?    Our guide today, astrophycisist Vincent Icke, writes: “There is n...

When the prisoner in Plato's cave is released and turns around, the light of the fire is painful and terrifying. Running back to their seat, it makes no sense at all and they have no language to even speak about it. When we experience something that does not fit in the framework within which we make sense of our reality, can we even call it "experience"? Ernst van Alphen calls trauma "failed exper...

Sometimes a cave is just a cave. Geologist Marcia Bjornerud will give us a guided tour of Plato's Cave. Marcia Bjornerud is Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton. Her research focuses on the physics of earthquakes and mountain-building, and she combines field-based studies of bedrock geology with quantitative models of rock mechanics. Marcia was named Ou...

Plato's description of the Cave is kind of like a cinema: an audience watching shadows on a screen, projected by a fire behind them. Have you ever felt like your life is a film? Have you noticed how many films have incorporated a Plato's Cave theme - The Matrix, Inception and The Truman Show, just to name a few? How can we learn from film, especially in this time when we are watching so many serie...

In Plato's Cave, the prisoners start out being limited to only one perspective, one way to look at life. But they turn around and go on a journey, where they encounter images that challenge what they have always believed about who they are and how the world works. In this episode, we will look at the way we can look at the world from different angles. We discuss how art can not only help us do tha...

Ask not what you can do with philosophy, but what philosophy can do with you! In this episode, I discuss life from Plato's Cave from a philosophical perspective with Johannes Niederhauser. We discuss, among other things, Heidegger's Essay Plato's Doctrine of Truth. A superficial reading of Plato's Cave might suggest that there are two worlds, and that the truth is something out there to be found l...

lifefromplatoscave.com  Welcome to Life From Plato's Cave. This is a course in interdisciplinary philosophy in which we look at life - the part of life that interests you - from a new perspective in every episode. In each of the following episodes, I will interview a guest about their intepretation of Plato's Allegory of the Cave: philosophers, artists, literary scholars, phycisists, actors, psych...

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