Key Arguments

• Only 'last of all' can one see the sun 'in his own proper place' and 'contemplate him as he is.'
• From this sight one infers the sun 'gives the season and the years,' is 'guardian' of the visible world, and 'cause of all things' they had seen.
• Socrates then applies the allegory: in the world of knowledge, the idea of the Good appears 'last of all,' is 'parent of light and of the lord of light' in the visible, and 'immediate source of reason and truth' in the intellectual.

Source Quotes

Certainly. Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. Certainly.

Certainly. He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.

Key Concepts

• Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place
• this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things
• in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort
• the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual

Context

Socrates connects the Cave’s sun-sighting to the prior Sun analogy, explicitly identifying the Form of the Good as the supreme epistemic and axiological cause.

Perspectives

Plato

Reasserts the Good’s primacy as cause of intelligibility (truth, reason) and of value (beautiful and right); the cave’s ascent dramatizes dialectic’s telos.

Socrates

Uses inferential transition from sight to reasoning about the sun to model how dialectic reasons from vision of the Good to its causal supremacy.