Return to the Cave: Philia, Eros, and the Erotic-Hermetic Structure of the Philosophical Life

Abstract

In the scholarly literature on Plato’s Republic, one of the abiding questions has been and remains: why must the philosopher return to the cave? Socrates’s claim that philosophers will do so willingly thanks to their feeling of duty to the polis is rather unsatisfying and doesn’t mesh with the ethical framework presented by the Republic as a whole. Here, I draw on the work of Eric Voegelin and John von Heyking, in order to propose a two-axis model of what I call the erotic-hermetic structure of the philosophical life. By emphasizing the horizontal (i.e. hermetic, or interpersonal) element of the philosophical life, I argue that the philosopher, in order to be what he or she is in the fullest sense, must return to the cave.