Humans, Fishes and Prisoners: Representation of Human Condition in Phaedo’s Final Myth and in Republic’s Image of the Cave.

Abstract

This paper focuses on a comparison between the Plato’s Myth of the Afterlife in Phaedo and the Image of the Cave in Republic. Specifically, I analyze the portraits of human condition in both passages (Phaid. 109 c3-110b1; Resp. 514a-519a) considering their inner structure. The parallelism between human condition and fishes living in the depths of the sea is the fulcrum of the Phaedo’s final myth. By comparing on the one hand the sea / inhabited land / surface of the true earth, and on the other hand fishes / humans, the passage distinguishes between a visible, sensible world and an invisible, transcendent world. Moreover, the passage distinguishes between objects and forms of knowledge as well as different levels of inner awareness. Phaedo’s eschatological myth anticipates the Image of the Cave’s contents by leaving space for liberation theme. Indeed, we are all unconscious prisoners. Unless the change arrives, obliging the sight to look elsewhere in order to find a way out, we will remain immersed in the darkness.

Keywords: Plato, myth, afterlife, structure, cave.