Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece, Declassified.

Episode R7, Plato's Cave.

What if I told you that you are a slave, that like everyone else, you were born into bondage,

in a prison that you cannot see or smell or touch, a prison of the mind?

It's hard to believe that it's been almost 23 years since the first Matrix movie came out.

It's hard to believe how deeply its imagery and metaphors have penetrated our collective imagination.

The idea of The Matrix has proved so compelling that now, 19 years after the saga seemingly ended with Matrix Revolutions,

we just got yet another sequel.

The Matrix may be everyone's favorite metaphor for describing a state of delusion, where people

don't realize all the lies they're being fed. But the Wokowski's didn't invent this image.

The Matrix is just one of many new takes on a very old idea. Plato's Cave. The cave analogy,

which takes up the majority of book 7 of the Republic, is one of the most famous passages in all of

Western philosophy. It's arguably the highlight of the Republic. And I think Plato himself

sensed that, because the very first word of the republic is katebain, which means

I went down. On the beginning, that refers to Socrates' going down to the port of Pyreus,

where he meets up with the other characters who will take part in the philosophical discussion

that makes up the republic. But as loyal listeners of this show will know well by now, the first few words of a

classical text are never random. They are always chosen carefully and deliberately with a purpose

in mind. And so some interpreters and scholars have suggested that the entire republic is a metaphor

for Socrates going down not to the port of Pyreus, but into the cave of

our collective ignorance, and attempting to pull his companions and us readers up towards the light.

Now, there are many, many discussions out there about the cave and many updated takes like

...