In Plato’s Republic, there are a several key passages including “The Good”, “The Sun”, “The Divided Line”, “The Cave”, “The Summoners”, “ The Curriculum”, and “The Model Recruit” that help us better understand the four main points of this reading. The four main points are intelligibility, the good, and dialectic and how these things make people more moral individuals. During the final stages of producing philosopher-kings, we discover that The form of the Good is a major key in deciding who can be a philosopher-king. The individuals can understand The From of the Good, which means that they possess the highest level of knowledge and intelligibility, a very rare trait. The good is what most of the discussion surrounds and he gives us three analogies to describe “what is the offspring of the good and most like …show more content…
He describes a scene where people have lives in a dark cave and have never seen the light of day. These people are bound and can only see the wall that is right in front of the. Behind them is a fire and they can only see shadows that are cast on the wall in front of them, in this stage these people represent imagination, the lowest stage on the divided line. Next, a prisoner is released and is able to see the fire and the statues that cast the shadows on the walls in front of them. This stage is the stage of belief, when the prisoner begins to understand how the fire casts the shadows on the walls. Then, the prisoner is released to the outside world, and is able to see “real” objects and develops the use of thought. Last, the prisoners begins to understand how the sun is the reason why he call see these things and reaches the stage of understanding. “In the knowledgable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen , and it is reached only with difficulty” (1135B). We are encouraged to “put knowledge back into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind
Explain how stem cells are used in treating heart disease, brain disease, cancer, and helping with organ regeneration.
If you had a vast and extraordinary knowledge that would bring truth and light to the rest of the world but would be violently rejected by the world for this knowledge, would you still share it? Over that past centuries, philosophers, religious leaders, scientists, teachers, and dreamers have brought their insights and enlightenment to the forefront of society knowing that they would be violently rejected. Many of these enlightened individuals have been later claimed as martyrs for their knowledge and actions when they are later proved to be the truth. So why do they do it? A great philosopher, Plato, debates such a topic and explains the reality and risks of being one who is enlightened in an ignorant society. In his work The Allegory of the Cave, Plato urges his reader to find enlightenment and face its risks through his
In the parable, “Allegory of the Cave,” the literal action of being blinded can best be summed up as an effect on the freed prisoner caused by the sudden environmental change the prisoner passes via each case. The first case demonstrated when the prisoner is freed, and he is literally blinded by the removal of darkness from his regular environment. The second case being the reciprocal of the first, in which the sudden change from a life of light is removed and the prisoner is once again forced to adapt to a somewhat unfamiliar environment, darkness. By the way of allegory, Plato goes on to explain that because the prisoners could only see a limited degree of life, they were trapped and deprived of certain fruits the world has to offer. On the flip side, once the prisoner is released and then brought back to his original state, he once again finds himself face to face with the all too familiar feeling of blindness. This blindness in turn creates a feeling humbleness that is equally as important as the first case. The prisoner’s intellectual journey opens up a philosophical approach to finding truth and wisdom that all men should pursue in the name of the greater good.
When discussing “Allegory of the Cave” it is important to know what it is all about and it why it took place. Prisoners are chained and can only see darkness. They are facing a black wall and are projected to figure out what is real in life and what is not. They are not able to turn their heads. Plato wanted the people be aware of what is going on around them. There are puppets that are behind the walls that are showing shadows. The prisoners can only see the shadows and not the real objects. The can also hear the echoes, but nothing else. The prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. What this really means is no matter what was really behind the wall
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
Human souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that they have figured out how to live so that their lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for them having passed through it. In philosophical sense, the search for Truth with capital T and knowledge marks the journey of a person to enlightenment. Undoubtedly in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’s illustrations and parables points repeatedly to different audiences and in different contexts conveying the same message in different connections. Through the parable of lamp, it can be inferred that a person should strive to gains knowledge and once enlightened, the knowledge should be shared with other people in order to give their life a purpose. In similar manner, Plato’s allegory of the Cave sheds a light upon the paradigm of a person who accepts the world as it is to a person who seeks to find the absolute truth. This work by Plato also emphasizes that a person after gaining knowledge must come back down to the cave to inform others.
“Allegory of the cave” is an allegory written by Plato while in Greece in the Classical age. It describes the concept of reality and enlightenment through the point of view of prisoners in a cave. The allegory describes how the prisoners have been chained their whole lives and can only see shadows. It describes how one of the prisoners is freed and goes outside and realizes how everything he knew was a lie. He becomes enlightened and returns to the cave only to be met with ridicule and resistance from the other prisoners.
In the allegory of the cave Plato tries to show us two scenarios where the prisoners experience emotional and intellectual revelations throughout their lives. Plato’s theory was that the ones who truly understand knowledge should guide the ignorant people out of their unenlightened states of being and into true knowledge. The cave symbolizes the people who think that knowledge come from what they see and hear in the world. It also indicates people that make assumptions about life based on the substantial things they experience through hearing and seeing. Plato’s main focus was to convey a story to the world about the difference between beliefs and truth. Anyone can believe in something they see, but that belief is really just a shadow of the truth.
My reflections this week’s discussion is of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave/Republic. I found this to be an interesting reading and video. Life itself is a long road of learning. Throughout our lives, we perceive things to what we believe or want to believe whether factual or not. We also believe in what we experience bad or good. Sometimes that bad experience can hold us back from moving forward or maybe it is that good experience we believe we don’t need to look any further. Learning is part of life and it is most important. It is what molds us who we are and who we become. If we hold us selves back, we will never truly know what opportunity, knowledge or experience there is to be taken. Sometimes we will be those prisoners that don’t
Throughout history of mankind there have been a select few who dared to go against the grain on popular beliefs. This can be explained throughout recent history ranging from politics to religion. The lessons from the text explains the evolution of understanding with the escaped prisoner reaching the light, therefore expanding his or her understanding of the world. When the prisoner returns to the cave to try to explain to the others that they could increase the limit of their understanding, the prisoner puts risk to his
The “Allegory of the Cave" by Plato, was written 2500 years ago. In the allegory, a prisoner is being kept in a cave, where puppeteers indoctrinate him to believe that what is being shown on the cave wall is the truth. One day a prisoner escapes to the upper world and is enlightened. Realizing that the cave was a hoax and a lie, he goes back down into the cave in an attempt to enlighten the others but is threatened with death. In Plato’s allegory, I am a prisoner but I am ascending up the rugged stairs.
The Allegory of the Cave or also known as, Myth of the Cave, is a good example of explaining the feature of the way people think. It is a concept that demonstrates how humans are fearful of change and what they don’t know. Plato says that men are living in an underground cave and it is a situation. The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. Plato talks about being free, everyday life, knowledge, and essentially what he wrote to be true. I think that he was very unique with his writings because there are so many ways to look at the world and his way was just one. He was educated highly and is recognized as a philosopher to this day.
This knowledge is a blessing and a curse. A philosopher king has such a deep understanding and vast knowledge that he wants to share, but he cannot because those around him just cannot comprehend because their reality does not align with his. A major contradiction arises because of this problem and the solution is telling medicinal lies. The lies and stories help break down the complex knowledge to his people in parts so they get the same information, but in a way they can comprehend and still use. This is absolutely necessary as usually a person with different ideas or opinions lose out to the mob. The lies and stories help people come around slowly to the philosopher king’s way of thinking. His medicinal lies give simple meanings for complex ideas to those that do not have the formal education or knowledge so they can still be relayed important morals and lessons from the stories. The allegory of the cave is a perfect example of what the philosopher king went through and what he needs to do to slowly bring about his people. The cave also illustrates what can go wrong. If the process is rushed trust will be all but lost and the philosopher king endangers himself against the
“Allegory of the Cave”, written by Plato, is story that contrasts the differences between what is real and what is perceived. He opens with Glaucon talking to Socrates. He has Glaucon imagine what it would be like to be chained down in a cave, not able to see anything other than what is in front of him. He tells a story of men that were trapped in a cave and were prisoners to the truth. These prisoners have only seen shadows. But because of their ignorance, these slaves to the cave believe that the shadows are real. The story goes on to say that one of the men has been dragged out of the cave. He is not happy to see the real world, yet upset because he is being taken
Rather than the practical pursuit we are accustomed to, for Plato, Politics is an intellectual faculty. Governance by non-philosophers is to be governed by opinions, beliefs and self-interest; in contrast the philosopher ruler will govern with virtue and justice with no hidden agenda. The philosopher is in love, in love with learning, knowledge and truth. It is important to make a distinction here between the acquisition of knowledge and the acquisition of truth, because knowledge is not necessarily the truth.