The process of apprehending true knowledge is a task unfit for those who cannot overcome the concepts that the truth is associated with. This task of discovering knowledge tests an individual and their dedication to the process. However, this process is grueling and does not always yield the expected or desired result. According to philosophers, such as Socrates and Plato, humans are born with innate knowledge that becomes accessible through reasoning and life experiences. Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave describes of a group of people, in a cave, that have been shielded from society for their entire lives and were given an alternate and limited education. One man is forced out of the cave and into the light of the real world, where he …show more content…
The prisoner’s process of apprehending knowledge in The Allegory of the Cave is depicted as an arduous yet spiritual process. When the prisoner begins to acclimate into the world outside of the cave, he has to learn and observe in steps. The prisoner first starts with seeing shadows because it is what he is used to when he inhabited the cave. Then, he can see the reflections of objects. After, he is able to move on to watching the actual objects. The released prisoner eventually can observe the night sky. Finally, he can look at the sun and truly understand the importance and meaning of it (Plato.153). The prisoner cannot merely stop at looking at objects because he has to comprehend the new world and look deeper into its meanings. He is unable to physically contact the sky which causes a feeling of uncertainty and wonder. The sun represents the truth and realities of the world, which is why he was so blinded by it when he first was forced out of the cave. The knowledge that the prisoner now possesses gives him the strength to rise above the standing of those who are stilling living in the shadows. In order to fully grasp the knowledge of the world, an individual must slowly understand smaller concepts before attempting to gain the full truth. The value of apprehending knowledge is questioned in The Allegory of the Cave when the prisoner has
Conversely, Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" describes the ascent from ignorance to knowledge, as one prisoner is freed to make his
In the Allegory of the Cave there are chained prisoners in cave who can only stare at the cave wall in front of them. At the back there is a long entrance with a staircase the width of the cave and a fire burning in the distance. They see only shadows projected in front of them from a raised platform and hear an echo that they attribute to what they observe. They talk about and name the shadows of objects they see before them. To them the truth are the shadows. Then one day one of the prisoners is released. He is told that what he saw before was an illusion. Once he is outside it takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the sun. First he observed the shadows of thing then their reflection and finally the actual object. Remembering his previous state he goes back to the cave and tries to explain that everything is an illusion but they laugh at him and think he’s crazy. They believe it best not to ascend and they choose to remain as they are. The cave represented opinion. The shadows that are cast on to the wall represented physical objects. The prisoners represented the common people (Welles).
Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” examines the quest, responsibility, and cost of intellectual enlightenment. The story is of a man, being held prisoner since birth, being freed and learning that his perception of reality was inaccurate. He shared his discovery, which was met with contention and anger from the people in his society when he tried to relieve them of their ignorance. The group were all born prisoners in a cave where they could not see behind them, and only could hear the echoes, and see the shadows cast of people and items moving behind them. One day, the man was released and was forced to embark out of the dwelling to see that it was actual people and inanimate objects being reflected in front of them. After having difficulty
Upon first exiting the cave we are blinded by the brightest of light, though we cannot recognize its origin, we know that it charts our course. Slowly we begin to notice at first little variations of light, mostly little color changes, as if we could not have possibly have taken it in all at once. This is the first realization of education; past truths are either put into perspective or proven false. Either way our mind is finally opening up to the ideas and images that have evaded us for so long. The ability to reason is building within us and we start to question all things past we knew to be true. The eyes start to see even more now and the pain has subsided. We are ravenous and cannot seem to get enough of our surroundings. The strangest thing starts to happen, it seems that the more knowledge we acquire the more questions that present themselves. The same could be said for education in two different ways. First, the more knowledge that we acquire, the more ability we seem to have for the future acquisition of knowledge. Its as if we are not limited by the container we use to store this information, on the contrary, we now have discovered that its depths are limitless. Secondly, the more knowledge we acquire, the more confidence we seem to find in regards to taking on bigger challenges and tasks.
No one knows everything. In Plato's, "Allegory of the Cave", the reader is introduced to an analogy referring to a common reaction of the ignorant toward wisdom. In the story, prisoners are held in captivity and unable to see anything else other than shadows on the wall (989). This represents modern day civilization and refers to the ignorant- ignorance toward politics, history, general truths, etc. Life as an ignorant prisoner from Plato's analogy consist of playing a game to pass the time- a game that includes watching as the shadows of wiser and better well-off living beings are cast on the wall (989). Modern civilization is constantly listening and looking toward politicians whom cast a shadow, deciding the laws and methods of protection in which civilians abide.
In his allegory of the cave, Plato describes a scenario in which chained-up prisoners in a cave understand the reality of their world by observing the shadows on a cave wall. Unable to turn around, what seems to be reality are but cast shadows of puppets meant to deceive the prisoners. In the allegory, a prisoner is released from his chains and allowed to leave the cave. On his way out, he sees the fire, he sees the puppets, and then he sees the sun. Blinded by the sunlight, he could only stare down to view the shadows cast onto the floor. He gradually looks up to see the reflections of objects and people in the water and then the objects and people themselves. Angered and aware of reality, the freed prisoner begins to understand illusion
In the Allegory of the Cave, there is a symbolic representation of an event that did not happen in real life. Is a fictional story in where Socrates asks Glaucon to depict an image of the needs for education, specifically he wants Glaucon to imagine humans as prisoners in a cave and turn sous to the light. In the underground caves prisoners are kept there since childhood incapable of moving their necks, legs and heads because they are all sitting in rows with chains. In general, prisoners are forced to live in a world were they are not able to see and reflect reality. The cave predominantly depicts how individuals are raised in a world were they feel secure throughout their life, and for this reason it was difficult for them to understand the truth outside the real world. Prisoners were living in a world were shadows reflected images of what they believed was to be true. The source of light prisoners have is a fire located above and behind them, more importantly a wall is divided between them, and in this case fire allows the shadows to be viewed which shows the puppet-masters. These are individuals who are making the shadows, noises and using objects to show over the wall. Their focus is to make society be blind and abstained from the real world. Moreover, those shadows allowed prisoners to become comfortable and adapt to the way in which they were living. The shadows also represent the knowledge prisoners may have and for this reason they as society were to live away
In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, "The Allegory of the Cave” is a symbolic story of which there are prisoners in a cave with a fire that is located behind them. They have always faced the wall of the cave and have only seen what was outside of the cave from the shadows. They believe that the shadows of the objects carried are real, but in reality, it 's just a shadow of the truth. The prisoners play a game where they guess what the shadows are and end up believing that it is the truth. However, when one prisoner escapes and faces reality, where the sun is a source of life, he realizes that the game was pointless. He seeks for meaning and truth from his journey outside of the cave. Socrates then insists that he must return to the cave and share what he has found with the prisoners because it will benefit everyone as a whole. However, when he returns and informs the prisoners, they react by not believing him and threatening to kill him if he set them free, because they are scared of the change that would occur after knowing the truth. Socrates believes that knowledge gained through senses is no more than an opinion. True knowledge is gained through reasoning and understanding. The allegory could symbolize positivity in modern American society.
The Allegory of the Cave demonstrates true knowledge and evidence. The moral of the story is about people in a cave bound to a wall. They only see shadows on the walls of humans carrying artifacts. They believe what they can see and what they know, nothing else. It would be impossible to create new ideas in your mind or imagine a new color. A man is released, no longer seeing the shadows he saw, but new things he had never seen or known. He was overwhelmed knowing the sun could be creating the shadows on the walls or seeing a color he had never seen before. The prisoner would most likely return to the cave to tell the other prisoners what he saw. The other prisoners most likely would not believe him. They have believed the same thing forever
In the history of the cave in Book VII of the Republic of Plato, Socrates attempts to convince his disciple Glaucon of the state in which most of the human beings are regarding the knowledge of truth and ignorance, illustrating his disciple in Questions concerning wisdom. (514a)
Written over two thousand years apart, The Matrix and The Allegory of the Cave still stir up the same type of intellectual discussions over full enlightenment despite taking place in an entirely different world. Written between 380 and 360 B.C, The Allegory of the Cave, depicts a hypothetical situation in which a group of prisoners have been chained since birth only able to see the shadows casted on to the wall in front of them. They know nothing more than the shadows they see on the wall, completely oblivious to everything going on in the world. However, just because that’s all they know, doesn’t mean that’s all there is, it isn’t until they are unchained and introduced to the real world that they are truly enlightened. Much later, in
The Allegory of the Cave as it begins with observation of people that are less spirited and see how evil or righteous each one is. Along with comparing them to one other and themselves. This observation is deeply observed to search for people that can be educated to stand before rulers and fight for their own beliefs. But, only permit to be next to high rulers for a time and once the term is completed send down to be with any other commoner. Thus at the end feeling that they have come to a conclusion that the best will come from people that are not rich in material things but strong in knowledge.
In the story Allegory of the Cave the people whom are prisoners are trapped in a cave, they believe the cave in which they live in is all there is to their world and are perfectly fine with that. The dark cave and the chained prisoners are an example of the world we live in, an ignorant world with ignorant people. The prisoners believe that seeing shadows is the norm, but they have no self-awareness that these shadows actually exist “outside the cave”. Until one day a prisoner is released to see the outside world. It was difficult dragging the prisoner out of the cave but when he makes it out of the cave to see the outside world he eventually learns about the new world and realizes his former life was a complete lie. The philosopher in this
dark cave and how we could easily compare this to the types of education that we get and how we can apply it to our life. As Plato said, education should not be putting knowledge into the soul, but turning the soul toward right desires. We have lost all sorts of communication due to the technology that we have started using.
In Plato's excerpt “The Allegory of the Cave”, he uses both a cave and prisoners as a metaphor for gaining true knowledge. In Plato's anecdote he describes these prisoners that are chained inside a cave and are only able to see the shadows of objects projected from behind them. Since these prisoners have been chained inside a cave their whole lives for them“the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 587). People only know what they are given. Since these prisoners were only given shadows of objects to make sense of the world, this limited information became their view of reality. Their vision of the world will