Plato on the question of knowledge of Justice is difficult. What I am about to tell you is probably more than you will get in an intro class, and probably even at the undergraduate level.
Dealing with just the cave analogy, it seems that knowledge of Justice is possible because prisoners are 'dragged' up to the surface and eventually see the sun with their own eyes.
However, you must be aware that looking at the sun with your naked eyes can blind you, so it is better to look at it indirectly via reflections; thus arguably Plato's use of analogies.
Plato admits in the Phaedrus that analogies ought not be taken on a one to one basis with Truth.
Further along, and not very often read, in book VII of The Republic, just a few lines down from the allegory of the cave, Plato has Socrates say:
"That the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apphrehends is that the eye that could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by the turning of the whole body" (518 D).
So in the cave allegory we have an assent, but in the true analogy we have a turning. Also in the true analogy we have reference to the body and to a turning which arguably we are all in control of turning our own bodies. I will leave it at this for you to make your own conclusions.
In Phaedo one must die and discard the inhibitations of the body to have clear knowledge of truth.
In the Phaedrus, it is the irrational horse that, out of its love and desire for the beauty of the Good, drags the charioteer to the Good.
|