将柏拉图看作是坚定的反媒介主义者，这种基于洞穴隐喻的推断表面上看没有问题，但实际上完全将柏拉图从他所处的媒介环境的语境中剥离出来，不利于理解柏拉图媒介思想的复杂性与丰富性。柏拉图身处文字崛起的时代，他反对口语文化，尤其是反对行吟诗人和悲剧作家的口语创作对雅典公民心灵的劫持。柏拉图的理想国其实就是文字共和国。晚年柏拉图对无形无相的媒介本身持相当积极的态度，围绕“廓落”这个概念，已经可以在柏拉图身上看到媒介本体论的萌芽。然而，媒介本体论与围绕“理念”的形而上学有着巨大的分歧，使晚年柏拉图的本体论深陷矛盾之中。在媒介本体论看来，柏拉图能想象到的一切，包括他的理念世界，都只不过是他的文字可以表述的那些东西。

To view Plato as a staunch anti-media theorist is an inference based on the allegory of the cave that, while seemingly unproblematic, in fact completely strips Plato from the context of his own media environment. This is detrimental to understanding the complexity and richness of his thought on media. Situated in an era of rising literacy, Plato opposed oral culture, especially the hijacking of the Athenian citizen’s soul by the oral creations of rhapsodes and tragic poets. Plato’s ideal republic is, in fact, a republic of letters. In his later years, Plato adopted a rather positive attitude towards the formless and imageless medium itself. Centered on the concept of chora, the nascent form of media ontology can already be seen in his work. However, media ontology diverges significantly from the metaphysics centered on “Ideas”, rendering Plato’s late-stage ontology deeply entangled in contradictions. From the perspective of media ontology, everything Plato was capable of imagining—including his world of Ideas—was nothing more than what could be articulated through his writing.