THE CAVE OF THE REPUBLIC: THE VISUAL METAPHORE OF A POLITICAL DRAMA.

Plato builds an impressive theatrical gear-system and choreography of images at the beginning of book VII of The Republic, which aims at narrating the human condition in a figurative and vivid manner. He draws upon an important flow of images to awaken originally immobilized awarenesses so that they can liberate themselves and conquer wisdom in order to act, socially, with justice. At the same time, essential theses of its theory are being explained: dualism, the ontological and antithetic difference between the sensible and comprehensible world; the relationships of immediate perception to the senses and the order of ideal realities, the "be" in itself, mediate knowledge that can be apprehended by the intellect. Through pictures, the philosopher draws necessary steps for the spirit to attain the science of the absolute, a body of truths determining the essence oνσία, when he formulates a discourse of formal abstraction, the Theory of Ideas; and with all the problems this theory, in its philosophical history, causes him and his successors, controversial reflections are being set off that later will be called "metaphysics". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]