Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #10 - The Trial of Socrates and Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #10 - The Trial of Socrates and Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Okay, so we are doing Socrates and Plato today. Last class, we did Greek theater. And remember I said that Ishalis, Sophligates, UPDs, they're really prophets of democracy. They see themselves as teachers who teach Athenians how to practice democracy. We also said that there are three major benefits to democracy. The first major benefit is kings are bad. Kings have hubris, and hubris creates all sorts of problems. So remember in the play Integony by Sophocles,

the king Creon sentences intangony to death, even though it was unjust, and that was because of hubris. The second major benefit of democracy is it is a gift from the gods that teaches citizens individual responsibility. So remember that in Eurystia, Ischleus told us that, democracy is a gift from Athena in order to promote justice and truth in the world. And the third major benefit is democracy is really the best way to promote justice and truth in the world. If citizens come together and they deliberate and act with in good faith, then the world will be a better place.

Okay, so that is the argument from the playwrights of Athens. Now, obviously there are people who disagree with this perspective. And one of the most famous opponents of democracy is Socrates. Socrates lived during the time of the golden age of Pericles in Athens, and there's a very vocal opponent of democracy for the following reason. In order to practice democracy properly, people need to access the truth. But to access the truth, you need to have reason.

And his argument was that most people are not capable of exercising reason in their thinking. And to prove this, every day he would be sitting outside the Agora, which is the marketplace of Athens, and this is where everyone came together. And he would spend all day arguing with people something called a psychotic dialogue, and showing the flaws in your reasoning,

showing you why you don't really understand the world when you think you do, trying to prove that you are ignorant. So let me give you a demonstration of what Socrates did, okay? So give me a statement that is fundamentally and inherently true. Give me a statement that you think is, fundamentally and inherently true. The earth is a sphere, right? The earth is a spear. And so this is a statement that we think is true, right? And so what Socrates would do is he

would slowly and methodologically expose the flaws in this statement. Okay. So the first question for you is, what is a sphere? Explain what a spear is. Okay, so you have three-dimensional round shape energy, okay? and give me an example of a spear, a ball, right? So you're saying the earth is like a ball. Is that correct? It's all around. Okay.

And how do you know the statement is true? Who told you this? I mean, you can know a ball is a spear because you hold it in your hand, right? But you're not a God. You don't hold the earth in your hand. So how do you know it's true? Anyway, I can go on like this obviously for a very long time. And so this is what Socrates did, and this is what it called a psychotic dialogue.

And actually we still use this in many different places, like for example, law school. So in American law schools, if you have, if you ever make the stupid mistake of ever applying to law school and you get into law school, they will teach you using the psychotic dialogue, okay? But the idea is to show the flaws in your reasoning. And obviously, if you get an argument for Socrates, you come out as a very mad person. So the reputation of Socrates in Athens during this time was he was either a, you could either see him as a bully, okay?

It was an intellectual bully, or he was a clown, or the most common understanding of Socrates was he was a trickster. He tricked you into making statements that were illogical because fundamentally language doesn't I capture the truth, okay? Language is just a convention we have to, in order for us to communicate. But it's not meant to reflect reality, okay? And Socrates was exposing the fundamental flaws in our language system. So any questions about this so far?

All right, so to give you a sense of how Athenians thought about Socrates at that time, Let me describe to you a play by Aristophanes, okay? Aristophanes. Aristophanes was a very famous satirist in Athens. And he made fun of all the very famous individuals of Athens, including Pericles, who as we said was the de facto king of Athens at this time, but also Cleon, who replaced Pericles as the leader of Athens.

He also made fun of Socrates, okay? And the play was produced in 423 BCE, and the play was called the Clouds. So let me first explain the plot of the Clouds, and then we will interpret what it meant. So in the Clouds, this is Athenian farmer, a normal citizen, and he's in a lot of trouble because his wife spends a lot of money. So he owes a lot of money to creditors, and his creditors are banging at the door and demanding their money back. So he comes up with his plan to get rid of his debts. There's a school called a thinkery, and it's run by a man named Socrates. The thinkery proposes to teach you

reason, logic, truth so that you can go and deceive jurors, okay? You can basically go and manipulate people and deceive them in a trial to get out of your debts. So he wants to his son to the thinkery to learn how to lie to juries. His son, who is a playboy, refuses because he says that Socrates, he's a cheat, he's a liar, he's a fraud. I refuse to go. The man decides to check out the thinkery by himself. He goes in, and he sees Socrates, okay, hanging from a basket from the ceiling.

And the man's curious, like, what are you doing up there? And Socrates says, well, from up here, I have a clearer and higher vision of the world. I can access truth better. Also from here, I can draw inspiration from the clouds. Who are the true gods? Okay? Not Zeus, not Heracles. The clouds are the true gods.

And they're the ones who give me inspiration to come up with all these brilliant ideas. Okay? So the man in Socrates has, they have a very long conversation, and he's completely, to convince Socrates is a sage, okay? He's a philosopher. He runs back and he tells his son, you must go enroll in the thinkery and learn for Socrates, okay? So the son decides, this is the path of least resistance.

He goes to a thinkery, and he becomes Socrates student. Meanwhile, the man's creditors are banging the door and saying to him, where is my money? And the man says, the man is not going to use all the tricks that So he's taught him, okay? So what he says is, I don't owe you any money. And then the creditor says, you swore by Zeus that you would pay me back. The man says, oh, guess what? Zeus doesn't exist. Okay? He's not a god. So I swore an owe to nothing. Therefore, I owe you nothing. The creditors, the credit he obviously gets angry and he leaves, okay? Now, the sun comes. comes back and the first thing he does is start beating his father and the father is like why are you beating me son and then the son says Socrates taught me to beat you and the father's like what he didn't why is he teaching you that and the son says he taught me justice

now when I was young did you beat me the father says yes of course I beat you because you were a naughty boy and then the son says therefore I can now beat you because you're a naughty person for refusing to pay back your creditors okay the man gets very angry and he decides to go burn down the think we with Socrates inside it okay and that's how the play ends now this is not a great play okay this is not a famous play of Greece but it tells you what Athenians thought of Socrates at this time okay And it shows us that Athenians didn't think much of Socrates. He worships the clouds, right? Which is nothing. So what they're saying is Socrates makes things out of thin air.

He's just a fraud. He's a manipulator. He's a liar. But Socrates did have a lot of fans. Specifically people who really hated democracy. And so the people who really really hated democracy were the children of the rich. These were aristocrats, born into the wealth. most noble aristocratic families of Athens, who hated the fact that the normal people thought they were their equals, okay? So what So what Socrates did was he taught them basically mental or linguistic kung fu, right, to go beat up these commoners who dared to think they're equals. One most famous, the most famous of these students included Plato,

who we all know, but also Alcobiahs who was one of the wealthiest members of Athenian society and they actually became leader of Athens as well okay so um socrates had his fans and and because Athens was such a wealthy and open and tolerant society they allowed Socrates to basically do whatever he wanted okay until 404 BC this was the year that Athens lost the Peloprussian War to Sparta. Okay? And when Athens lost the war, Sparta did not burn Athens down.

Sparta had the right to burn Athens down, but it did not, okay? Instead, Athens imposed a dictatorship called the 30 tyrants. And the 30 tyrants came from the wealthiest families of Athens, who also happened to be students of Saucats. Socrates, okay? Socrates did not actually participate in a tyranny, okay?

Socrates refused to participate in a tyranny, but there were many of these tyrants who were Socrates students, and they were terrible people. They killed at least 5% of the Athenian population. They stole a lot of wealth, and they were so terrible that ultimately the Indian people revolted against them and reinstalled their democracy. So, when the tyrants was overthrown, the 30 tyrants were exiled, but most people were given clemency, okay? They were forgiven if they participated in the regime. Then what happens next is very strange.

In 399 BC, Socrates is put on trial. Remember, this is after that democracy is reinstated, and this is when people who participated in the tyranny were forgiven. But in 399 BCE, Shaglis was put on trial. He was put on trial and charged with two crimes. The first is impiety, which basically means he was insulting the gods of Athens, including Zeus, which is what he did in the play clouds, okay? Okay?

The second is corrupting the youth of Athens. Basically mis-educating the youth of Athens, which is also what he did in the clouds. So it almost seems like this entire trial was a cruel joke put on by the people of Athens to teach Socrates a lesson. Does that make sense? So the people of Athens expected Socrates to apologize. make some jokes, be funny, and then all's forgiven, right? During the trial, Socrates refused to defend himself.

What he said was this, I am not a good speaker. I am bad with words. I'm just a poor person, okay, who comes from a poor family, who spends every day singing out the truth. I spend all my time seeing out the truth, thinking about the truth that I have no time to practice rhetoric. I'm not good with words. Also, I should not have to defend myself because you're all capable of reason, you're all capable of logic. Therefore, if you just think for yourself, you will realize I'm not guilty. I have absolutely

nothing to do with the 30 tyrants. I spent all my life trying to help Athens. Therefore, If you're stupid, you will vote me guilty. If you're stupid, there's nothing I can do about it. So obviously, the jury was insulted by his speech, and they voted out of 500 people, 280 to 220, they voted that he is guilty. They declared he was guilty of these two charges. Now, as you can see, it's still a pretty close vote, okay?

I mean, Socrates was basically being a jerk during a trial, and they still, they voted him guilty, but it was a pretty close trial, 280 to 20. Now, the second part of the trial is, if you ever found guilty, they have to figure out what your punishment is. So the jury asked Socrates to propose a punishment for his crime.

And then what Socrates said was, you have found me guilty. And the reason why you found me guilty is because I speak the truth. I'm a godfly, godfly. I go around and I point out the nasty truths of Athenian society. I put a mirror to your face and I show you your wards, your pimples, your ugliness. Therefore, you hate me.

But what I've been doing all my life has been for the good and betterment of Athens. I'm a public servant. I am the most selfless public servant. Okay, because I speak the truth and by showing the truth, I make you a better person Therefore, I think a just punishment would be a pension, okay? You guys should pay me to retire in peace But you know what I'm a generous and forgiving individual Therefore if you don't want to give me a pension, I understand

Therefore I am willing to pay a small fine, okay? I'll pay a fine, okay? I'll pay a fine, okay? And then were good. How about that? And again, the thinning jurors were pissed off, right? So they voted to condemn him to death by chicken hemlock. Okay, they basically gave him a death penalty. As they did so, they came to realize that they were perhaps tricked by Socrates. Socrates was 70 years old. That's very old for back then, okay? 70 years old was probably the age limit back then. He really didn't have much to live for.

And here's the opportunity for Socrates to be a martyr for the truth, right? All his life, he's been trying to convince people, democracy does not work, because people are incapable of reasoning out the truth. And what this trial shows us is he was correct. Does that make sense? So in many ways, you can make the argument that for Socrates, this tribe was a type of performance art. He was a performance artist.

And so the people of Athens realized that they were probably tricked, and they were trying to get out of condemning Socrates to death. But Socrates insisted. And it came to a point where Socrates was just left alone, and he had to demand to be given. hemlock and he had and he had to administer the hemlock by himself and so when he drank it he died okay now um after his death socrates remained an extremely controversial individual in Athens and he had a student Plato who was maybe 28 29 at the time his mentor died okay and he loved Socrates and he commit the rest of his life to

and redeeming the reputation of Socrates. So when it was 40 years old, he founded a school called the Academy, which was inspired by the vision of Socrates, as a philosopher who sought the truth. In 375 BC, he wrote a book called The Republic. And the Republic is the most famous of Plato's work. It is arguably the greatest work of Western philosophy. And many today considered the Republic the greatest book ever written, okay?

There are people in this world who read the Republic and it forever transforms the way they see the world, okay? It's a life-transforming event to read the Republic. And next semester we will actually read the Republic together, okay? But let me give you a quick introduction to the Republic. So in the Republic, there's a very famous metaphor, and it's called Allegory the Cave. And this is really the most famous allegory or metaphor or analogy in Western thought. Okay? By fault.

Nothing comes second to this. So before I start the allegory of the cave, are there any questions so far about what I've discussed? Anything unclear? Anything you would like to question or doubt or argue with? If I continue with the allegor of the cave? Okay? Clear so far? All right, so this is the allegory.

Imagine a cave deep under the earth, okay? There's a cave. Now in this cave at the back, there's a large fire that shines light into this cave, okay? There are these prisoners who are chained to the floor and they're chained so that they cannot move their necks. They can't move around, okay? They can't move.

The only thing can do is steer at a wall. in front of them. That's the only thing they can do. Okay? Now there are these people behind them who are like puppeteers. They hold up cardboard pictures of like maybe like rats and birds, okay? And the fire will project these images onto the wall. And so these people who again cannot move around and they can only see the war in front of them, they come to think that this wall is the truth. It's the only reality that exists. And they start naming things that they see, and that creates language.

And they like to play games and try to figure out who can create the best language, okay? And then they give awards to the people who create the best language who are playwrights, right? Okay? So what Playo is saying is that we may honor art and poetry and drama but they're all lies okay now one day for whatever reason we don't know why but one man finds his chains are loosen and he's able to get up okay and he sums around he sees a light coming from the top so he's curious and he climbs all the way to the top and he's now outside in the free

world. Okay? And it's painful because his eyes are not trained to see the sunlight. So the sunlight, it's like burning him. Okay? It's like burning him alive. And so at first, all he's doing is still at the ground. And he's seeing reflections in the pond, in the pool. But then he slowly automatized himself to the sunlight. And he starts to see the world around him. And it's beautiful, okay? But it's so, it's so. But it's so beautiful that is beyond language. He doesn't have the language to describe this world that he's in. Okay? This is beyond language.

And finally, he develops the courage to stare up in the sky, and he sees the sun, okay? The sun. And he is amazed by how the sun is a source of all life. And now, for the first time, he fully understands the truth of the world. Okay? And when he does, he is ceased by regret. Because he remembers he has all these friends who are still trapped and imprisoned in the cave. And he pities them.

So he swears that he will, even though he loves where he is, he will still venture back into the cave in order to show people the truth of the world and to tell them that you've been living a lie all your life, okay? So he goes back into the cave. Now remember, his eyes are now accustomed to sunlight. So in the cave, it's all dark. So he stumbles around. He stumbles around, he falls, and he hurts himself, okay?

And then he goes and talks to the prisoners and says them, Hey, I've been to the outside world. I've been to the sunlight. I know what truth is. And then they're like, can you describe to us what it's like then? And he can't do it, okay? And then they're like, tell us what you see on the wall. And because he's been so accustomed to truth,

he can no longer use human language to describe anything. And so the people are convinced. utterly convinced he's an idiot he's insane he's a clown and so they refuse to follow him and at some point because he insists on revealing the truth to them they kill him okay that's allegor the cave okay and you'll remember this allegory for the rest of your life now this allegory is powerful for three reasons okay and I want you remember these three reasons because we will go into them later on in the course. The first reason is who's the man who goes out in the sunlight and sees the truth? It's obviously Socrates, right?

So with this allegory, Plato redeems the reputation of Socrates, right? Because remember before Socrates was despised, he was laughed at by the Athenians. And what this allegory is saying is, That's because Socrates is a philosopher of the truth, okay? And people cannot deal with the truth. So that's why today we celebrate Socrates as the greatest philosopher whoever lived.

Not only that, but we consider him the first philosopher, even though he was not the first philosopher, okay? All right, so that's the power of the allegory of the cave. This image forever transforms the way humanity understands and perceives Socrates. That's the first thing. Second thing is, this allegory becomes so powerful that in the imagination of Christians,

Socrates becomes Jesus, right? Doesn't make sense. Socrates is Jesus for Christians. Because Jesus was God, and he came down to our world in order to speak the truth. And because we feared the truth, we killed him okay so for Christians allegory of the cave is really the story of Jesus as well another martyr for the truth but and the last thing is this allegory the cave becomes the

framework for Christianity okay it becomes an integral framework for the religion of Christianity so let me show you you how okay so this is an allegory and behind the allegory there is an understanding of reality a philosophy a religion okay so here is the platonic understanding of the world there's something called the form of the good okay and the obviously the metaphor would be the Sun okay and the form of the good is a source of everything okay it's a It's a source of all truth.

It is the truth. It's called the form of the good. And emanating from the form of the good are concepts and ideals that structure the universe. And they are reason, beauty, and truth, and injustice. And there are others, but these are the main ones. Reason, truth, beauty, and justice. They emanate from the form of the good. Okay, and then eminating from these concepts or these forms that are perfect, okay?

So, for example, maybe the perfect horse, which represents beauty, okay? Or the perfect woman who represents justice and beauty as well, okay? But this is all perfection. And from this higher world comes, or the lesser world, the reality we live in. So everything that we see here, everything that we are here is only an imitation, a shadow of this world. Okay? Does that make sense? Imitation.

So there are horses, but these horses are just copies of that perfect horse up there. Okay? So the major difference is in this world, this world is eternal. It has always existed and it will always exist. It's eternal. Second is it is immutable. Immutable just means it will never change, okay? And the reason why is it's perfect.

Okay? So these are three distinct qualities of this higher world. Eternal, immaculate, and perfect. And everything down here is basically the complete opposite, okay? We will all die, we all feel pain. But up there, no one feels any pain, no one dies. It's all perfect. Okay? Does that make sense? Guess why, guys? What is this? This is a Christian universe, right? This is God. This is heaven. This is Earth. Okay? Doesn't make sense. This is the allegory of the cave. And you can see how it does these three things. It redeems the reputation of Socrates. It gives Christians understanding of Jesus. And it becomes a the framework from which Christians will build their understanding of the world.

It becomes the basis of the Christian religion. Okay, so Plato is the real founder of the Christian religion, not Jesus. Okay? And we will go more into this when we discuss Christianity in the future. All right? Any questions? You look confused. Just ask any question.

Let's start having a discussion. having a discussion okay because I I know this is a lot let's try to unpack it okay yep oh great okay the republic okay okay so um the republic isn't really about the out of the cave okay the allegor of the cave actually appears in the republic the republic itself so Plato is trying to answer the question what is a good society okay what is a good society that's a question he's trying to answer because it's clearly not democracy because democracy kills Socrates, okay? So it's clearly not democracy So what makes a good society and the answer is a society that's based on justice?

Okay, it's a society that's based on justice but then what is justice? It's true, okay? But then what's true? Well truth is the form of the good. Then what's for the good? It's it is it is a the thing that philosophers can access for their own reasoning, right? Therefore, a good society is one that is ruled by philosopher kings because they're the only ones who can access the truth. And this society that's perfect, he calls the Republic. That's why it's called the Republic. The Republic, and we'll read this again next semester, is it's really trying to figure

out what makes a good society. And to further his argument, Plato uses the allegor of the cave. And like, listen, 50 years from now, you will still remember the allegory of the cave. Maybe you will remember the Charles Socrates or anything else you've learned in this class, but you will definitely remember the allegory of the cave, okay? Because it's embedded. First of all, it's a beautiful metaphor, but it's also embedded in our society. Okay?

So does that answer your question? echo? Do you have more questions? All right. Something else I want to explain is, okay, some might be interested as to why Plato is considered the greatest philosophy of all time, okay? All right. So it's not because he's the best, all right? It's not because he's the best. I would say there are three good reasons why he's so influential today. The first is Plato, the way he writes, it's unique and original to him. Plato originally trained as a playwright. So he wanted to be issuilus.

He wanted to be Sophocles, Eubides, because everyone wanted to be a playwright in Athens. It was the highest honor. So he learned the art of dialogue, okay? Because dialogue is the basis for theater. And so what he did that was innovative, and no one did this before it was, he basically took the dialogue of the stage,

and he transferred onto the page. So when you read Plato, it's actually a lot of fun, okay? Because it's basically, Socrates is his main character, having arguments and conversations with other people. So in terms of readability, Plato is definitely probably one of the most readable philosophers. Okay? He's definitely the most readable, famous philosopher.

Later on the semester, we will read, we will talk about Emmanuel Kant. Knot and Hegel and they are not readable, okay? They're just not. But Plato, anyone can read Plato and enjoy Plato, okay? So his readability, the originality of his writing is one really good reason why he remains so popular today. Second is he is extremely anti-democratic.

democratic okay his thinking is because like remember the most of traumatic event in his life was the death of his mentor Socrates and so it's the thing in democracy who killed his mentor so he passionately hates democracy okay well you know who else hates democracy kings hate democracy and about most of human history kings rule the rule the world, right? So what's amazing about Plato is he's the only writer in human history who has been read continuously for 2,000 years. Doesn't make sense. We lost Homer for a bit. We lost the playwrights, Ischleis, Sophgay and Eubites for a long time, but Plato has always been read

continuously and he's been the most, and as a result, because it's easy to access Plato, he's become the most influential philosophy all the time. Doesn't make sense. And third of all was his Academy. And the Academy in Athens at that time, it's like Harvard, right, or Oxford today. It's a place where all the elite children went. So his students were the most powerful people in the world basically. And his most famous student was Aristotle. in future classes Aristotle is the one who basically package and promoted Greek culture and Plato became a very important individual in in the spreading of Greek culture. In fact he was basically the main hero

in this process, okay? So does that make sense? Feel free to argue with me by the way. I mean like if you feel like I've said anything controversial, controversial or you disagree with, let me know. And I will rebut. We can have a psychotic dialogue, okay? Any more questions? Ask a question, okay? Okay, that's a good question, okay?

What are the influences of Plato? So you can make the argument that Socrates was not that much of an intellectual influence on Plato. And the reason why is, remember, Socrates question your wisdom. But he himself did not propose any of his own theories, okay? So what we know is this. First of all, during this time, this was the golden age of Greek philosophy, right? You had lots of philosophers in different polices, different places, proposing all these wonderful theories.

So Plato definitely had access to them. Plus they were all friends, okay? And we also know this world of Greek thought was heavily influenced by Egypt, right? Because Egypt was really the epicenter of learning and philosophy at this time. And Egypt was actually very close to Greece. Also Mesopotamia, right?

The Persians. So 399 BC, So Cogadis died, and then Plato spends the next 12 years travel around the world. And while he's traveling, he's absorbing lots of different philosophy, okay? So look, we don't have access to Egyptian sources, right? So we don't know what sources would influence Plato. But we know the Egyptians heavily influenced the Greeks.

So we can make the assumption that the Egyptians were heavy influence on Plato, as well as Mesopotamia, as well as the other Greek philosophers, like Pythagoras and Democratus. And so what's really, important is Athens at this time was not an isolated society. It was part of a larger intellectual landscape that and a lot of these places had richer intellectual histories than Athens, okay? Egypt definitely, Mesopotamia. Okay? So does that answer your

question? The answer is we don't know. And the reason again is most of this is lost to us, right? I'm sure there were philosophers at this at this time who were the equal of Plato in terms of originality, okay? But we don't know who these people were. Because remember, citizenship, it's not really just about changing the past. It's also about eliminating most of the past, right? Okay.

It was very common, it was very common, it was very common for Greeks to think they should rule the world. It was just very common. So Plato himself actually went to a place called Syracuse. Syracuse is a city on the island of Sicily. It's very prosperous, and the king of Syracuse invited Plato to come counsel him on how to be a tyrant, a good tyrant, right?

He wanted to be like a philosopher king. And then Plato basically said to him, well, you should let me be the king, and then you will have a philosopher king. And of course, the king of succor just didn't like this idea, so he almost killed Plato, okay? But Plato had very, again, Plato has very wealthy friends, and he was very rich himself, so he basically ransomed his way out of Syracuse. So as a politician, as a practitioner of philosophy, oh sorry, as a practitioner of his philosophy, he's terrible, okay? Right?

He tried his philosophy in Syracuse. Didn't work out. Fiss up a lot of people, okay? But everyone wanted to be a philosopher king. Any more questions? Okay, so next question. class, we will do the rise of Macedonia. Okay?

So remember, these are ideas that are being incubated in Athens and in Greece at this time. But ultimately, these ideas conquer the world, right? Greek theater, Greek philosophy spread all around the world. And the main reason is Macedonia. The main reason are two individuals, Philip the second of Macedonia, and Alexander of the Great, who together will create, who together will create the Hellenistic Empire. And this is why Greek culture will spread around the world

and become the basis of Western civilization.