Out of the Cave--The Making of Leaders in Plato's Republic

Out of the Cave --

The Making of Leaders in Plato’s Republic

Trying to communicate a new Vision to your organization’s leaders? Maybe you can learn from Plato how to lead your leaders to see the light.

Probably the best known of all the writings of Plato is the few pages of Book 7 of the Republic known as the Allegory of the Cave.

So what is this allegory about? It could fairly be said to be about everything, for it addresses the key questions of philosophy: What is real? What is truth and how can we know it? What is Good?

The Philosopher King

Are we stretching then to say it’s about leading leaders?   Not at all. The structure of the Republic has Socrates sketching out the form of a “just state” in order to understand the meaning of justice itself. Most of the dialogue is actually devoted to the selection and training of the rulers of this state. At this point in the dialogue, Socrates has established that the rulers must be lovers of wisdom, devoted as much to pursuing the vision of Truth as they are to the execution of governmental affairs. And they must be people who in their own lives pursue the Good above all other goals. The Philosopher King is, in our words, a leader of Vision and moral integrity, who is willing and able to communicate his Vision and impart his morality to the rest of society, for the good of all.

Seeing the Truth: 4 Stages of Cognition

The Cave allegory itself comes in the middle of a long section devoted to the need for a rigorous course of specialized training for the Rulers, in order to elevate their minds through four stages of cognition:

Eikasia - - naive acceptance of appearance

The untrained mind naively accepts perception as real, whether that be the confused and contradictory messages of the senses or the equally inconsistent popular notions of morality. 

Pistis -- sound common sense beliefs

One up from this is the level achieved by students who have come to understand the difference between the perception and the object which causes the perception. They are less inclined to trust the senses as the sole arbiters of truth, but they are still mired in the world of appearances, says Plato, because they have not even considered that those objects are themselves mere approximations of realities more solid and truths more permanent.

Dianoia -- logical reasoning on mathematical certainties

The escape from the world of changing and untrustworthy appearances comes through mathematics, where careful deductive reasoning results in truths that are immutable and eternal. (Think of the Pythagorean theorem, for example. It is true for any and all right triangles that have ever existed or may ever exist.)

Episteme -- Knowledge

The ultimate realities are accessible only through the process of dialectic, the philosophical inquiry that ascends from the premises of our mathematical knowledge, upward to the first principles on which those premises depend. Plato calls these Forms. They are the non-material, intelligible objects that inform the material examples. The examples, then, be they examples of Treeness, Chairness, Justice or Goodness, are seen as mere approximations (some closer than others to the Form) which in turn excite our perceptions.

Dragging Leaders Out of their Cave

The cave allegory dramatizes the challenges involved in trying to lead potential leaders up through these levels of cognition to the vision of what is real, so that they may help others by virtue of their acquired wisdom.

Imagine, then, a cave at the end of a long passageway where no sunlight penetrates. In it, men chained by the leg and neck since childhood may only see what passes directly in front of them. Behind them, a half-wall, and behind it a fire burning. Between the half-wall and the fire are puppeteers, who operate their puppets above the half-wall. What the prisoners see, then, are the shadows of the puppets projected on the wall in front of them.

A graphic description of the state of eikasia. To these men, reality is defined by shadows of puppets. They have not been permitted to examine the causes of their sensory experience, so must believe it to be the only reality.

Now what would happen, Plato asks, if one of these men were suddenly freed, shown the puppeteers, made to look at the fire, even dragged out of the cave into the sunlight above? No doubt he would be dazed, confused and very resistant. He would seek the comfort of the shadows that he knows rather than the pain and blindness of this new world. 

How many enlightened presidents, CEO’s and other visionary leaders have tried this method of bringing their vision to those they would have leading the masses? Though the quality of their vision and the integrity of their motives is unquestioned, they still create enormous resistance and skepticism from people not afraid of change, but unwilling to “be changed.”

Plato’s “course of study” suggests another model. Leaders must be “educated” he says. But education is not a matter of injecting new knowledge into minds already filled with what they believe to be knowledge of their own. It is a matter of gradually turning the eye of the soul in the right direction, toward what it needs to see next, one step at a time.

So the selected candidate is permitted to dwell at first on the puppets, to ask questions of the puppeteers, to understand the relationship between these objects and the shadows it already knows. Next he is invited to view the fire and understand how it contributed to his former ideas. Eventually he is led into the total darkness of the long passageway, there to focus on mathematical models rather than sensory experience, to come closer to the permanence of Formal reality. Once into the light, he must study the shadows of objects and their reflections in water until his eyes become accustomed to the new level of light. Next he will look at the “real” objects (which represent the Forms) and see how these horses and trees are the models on which the puppets were built. Finally he will see the sun for what it is, the source of all other objects (through its energy) and also the source of their intelligibility (through its light.) This ultimate object of knowledge in the material world represents the Form of the Good, that which gives reality and intelligibility to all other Forms.

At each stage the role of the mentor is to direct the student’s view to the next logical object of knowledge, and by example to impress upon them the obligation that enlightenment brings to lead others in the same way.

What does this imply for the education of leaders to a new vision today? Here are just a few lessons; you may want to contribute some of your own

• Don’t negate what they already know; broaden their perspective instead
• Connect your Vision to their current frame of reference. Show the links between what they have been doing and what they need to do, rather than present it as a totally new world.
• Give it time -- remember the eyes must adjust to the light. Don’t be impatient if they don’t see it right away
• Don’t assume you’ve done your job if you’ve delivered the message once. It will take repetition, discussion, gentle direction.
• Allow for individual differences in pace. Some will need more time than others. That doesn’t make them stupid or resistant.
• Ask and invite questions: superficial acceptance of what you tell them does not produce conviction; they must understand the reasons
• Take one step at a time. The “big picture” isn’t fully understood when presented all at once. Decide what the steps are that will lead to a full understanding of the Vision, and follow them.
• Expect some confusion and bewilderment (it’s always the first stage, and it may recur later as well)