erefore would lead the individual to a more pleasurable state. The metaphor of the cave is employed at this point to facilitate understanding with powerful visual imagery. When the prisoners are seated with their backs to the fire, they are satisfying the desires of their appetite by looking at the mere shadows and treating those as genuine objects. When freed to turn around and face the actual bonfire, puppets, and their operators, the blessed prisoner has now been drawn closer to truth. Upon ascending from the cave, the individual experiences a painful process of adapting to the illumination of the sun (lower forms) and ultimately comes into direct visual contact with the sun, which is a metaphor of the ‘Good’. He gains knowledge of the ultimate truth – the form of the good – and experiences ultimate pleasure as a result. A most basic condition in this intriguing metaphor is that the prisoner puts his mind and reasoning in charge because it is the only method enabling him to perceive of the Good.Plato proceeds to explain that a person can attain the greatest happiness as long as his spirit and appetite follow the guidance of wisdom, which identifies proper and productive pleasure. It is only rational and obvious that letting the man (reason) be in control of the lion (spirit) and the many-headed monster (appetite) would lead to prosperity and fulfillment for the trio. Only wisdom (the man) can lead the way to happiness because it is equipped with innate capacity to reach such a state. If, contrarily, the many-headed monster (appetite) was to assume command, the potential of the mind to achieve reason and intelligence would be put in vain and the well being of the entity would inevitably corrupt and deteriorate due to its persistent pursuit of lusty desires.The possibilities of having the spirit and the appetite in control can be respectively derived from Plato’s descriptions of people in a timarchic and a...
