Katedra i jaskinia

The paper is an attempt to analyze Plato’s allegory of the Cave and Kafka’s parable Before the law in order to understand those texts in a way that emphasizes the relationship encompassing pragmatics and semantics of the cognition (with an emphasis on de se contexts). The suggested definition of Plato’s concept of dialectics should appeal to a special role of the ability to connect the content of a theory being learned with the subject’s position within the theory. According to the suggested reading of Kafka’s work, the key problem of both Joseph K. and the protagonist of Before the law parable is the understanding of one’s own situation and assumptions about oneself. In both cases the occasional and de se aspect of knowledge turns out to be the key aspects.