In Pursuit of Light: The Allegory of the Cave and Happiness
Since the age of Plato, mankind has searched for the true meaning of ultimate happiness and enlightenment. These concepts, while abstract and intangible, have manifested themselves in what people of the modern era would generally describe in terms relating to “socioeconomic status” and “the American dream”; such ideas are widely accepted as aspirational goals. According to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, our self-imposed boundaries cause us to unknowingly limit the potential of happiness, the greatest human aspiration.
Understanding Plato’s allegory requires a look beyond the literal meaning of the text and ponderance of the deeper, metaphorical significance of the cave in question. Despite the age of Plato’s philosophical texts, they have held the same general interpreted meaning throughout the centuries following his time. The cave itself is a metaphor for the societal boundaries within which we live, content with but largely unaware of the nature of our collectively defined reality. Metaphorically, the prisoners are those who live within the society in question and are chained
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To some extent, they are prisoners; we can assume that they have not left the cave, but hold a slightly different role in this constructed society. While they are not in complete compliance with their reality as the chained prisoners are, they are the ones perpetuating the state of reality within the cave. They differ from the chained prisoners and the enlightened individual through their attempts to define the boundaries of reality. While it is true that mankind’s aforementioned goal remains true for these individuals within the cave, this is not where their similarity with us ends; they are also intent on giving the abstract concept of enlightenment a tangible, completely comprehensible meaning through the shadows on the cave
In Book VII of Plato’s The Republic, the allegory of the cave paints a picture of ordinary people imprisoned in a cave. They are facing away
The whole point of the allegory is to represent to journey to enlightenment. The prisoners represent either the unenlightened that have not had enough experience to gain great wisdom or the uneducated that have not learned enough to gain great intelligence. And being thrown out of the cave into the outside world represents the process of becoming enlightened. Once enlightened they would of course not want to leave and to make them go back into the Cave would be cruel, as is noted by Glaucon. But as is explained they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not” (873). Plato claims that these enlightened have a moral responsibility to bring their wisdom to the common people in order to help them learn more so everyone can benefit from the knowledge of an individual. This is certainly an agreeable prospect and one that is not seen enough in the real world. Once
To begin, both “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury are pieces of literature that illustrate a symbolic scenario of human society, and the relationship between individual truths and reality. As they both share the same vital messages concerning society’s reactions to unfamiliar and new knowledge, both passages contain similar themes and characters. Comprising of universes that include people who are heavily influenced by physical and mental barriers, “Allegory of the Cave” and Fahrenheit 451 emphasize the importance of curiosity, insight, and radical perception.
The prisoners have been in these conditions since their earliest stages of life. The cave, the wall, and the chains are all the prisoners have ever known. Behind the prisoners, there was a raised path. Above the walkway was a platform, where there was a fire burning, and in front of the fire, was a parapet, which as Plato described it , was like that of the screens Puppeteers use to hide themselves and have the puppets be visible . Each and every day, the prisoners see nothing, but the shadows of the objects and people passing between them and the fire. For their entire lives, the prisoners are exposed to nothing but those images and the sounds made by those walking around. These shadows are all they have ever known, in essence; these shadows are their only “reality”. As time passed, the prisoners would grow accustomed to these sights, later on the prisoners would match the objects with names and the familiar sounds to the images of the shadows (514; Appendix A). In discussing the allegory with Glaucon, Socrates toys around the concept of what could happen to a prisoner should they be released after having lived their lives in the cave, with the only knowledge the possess of the world, are the images and sounds by the wall.
WHY DOES PLATO COMPARE ORDINARY HUMAN EXISTENCE TO THAT OF CHAINED PRISONERS IN A CAVE?
Prisoners, watching life unfold on the cave wall in front of them, accepting what they see as truth, as reality, are literally people. Every average person in this world is a prisoner, chained down. These chains that bind the prisoners to the floor are beliefs. Take clothes for instance, a person may not have very much money, so they should not spend enormous amounts on clothing, but the fear of not being accepted due to out of style clothes requires said person to spend too much money on their clothes. The fear spoken of is derivative of the person抯 beliefs, holding them to abide by the cultural norms, in this case purchasing over priced clothing. The prisoners are gazing at shadows on the wall, until he or she breaks free. To break free in this world, you must look at objects, individuals, cities and societies, even the universe as a whole, with reason. Do not simply rely on perceptions and senses to grasp concepts.
One of Plato’s more famous writings, The Allegory of the Cave, Plato outlines the story of a man who breaks free of his constraints and comes to learn of new ideas and levels of thought that exist outside of the human level of thinking. However, after having learned so many new concepts, he returns to his fellow beings and attempts to reveal his findings but is rejected and threatened with death. This dialogue is an apparent reference to his teacher’s theories in philosophy and his ultimate demise for his beliefs but is also a relation to the theory of the Divided Line. This essay will analyze major points in The Allegory of the Cave and see how it relates to the Theory of the Divided Line. Also, this
The main idea presented by Plato in his infamous Allegory of the Cave is that the average person's perceptions are severely limited by personal perspective. Plato uses the metaphorical situation of prisoners chained together in a way that limited their visual perception to the shadows projected from behind them onto a wall in front of them. He uses that metaphor to illustrate that perspective determines perceptions and also that once an individual achieves a wider or more accurate perspective, it becomes difficult for him to communicate with those who are still limited to the narrower perspective that he may have once shared with them. Plato meant his allegory to apply to the limitations of perspective attributable to social experiences as well as to the absence of formal education and training, particularly in logical reasoning. Plato believed that logical reasoning is a skill that must be learned through formal training and that without adequate training, it is substantially impossible to understand the logical perspective.
Plato's Cave begins by explaining the conditions of the people inside the cave. The people inside sit side by side. Their hands and legs are chained to the ground. They face a wall in the cave. The cave is illuminated by a fire behind the people. On the wall, there are projections of shadows created by the fire and objects that passes by fire. The prisoners don't know this, of course, because they are bound so tight that they can't turn their heads. There are people that are carrying objects to create the shadows. Not everyone is bound. The shadows represent the reality of which the prisoners see. They are chained down so they are compelled to see and accept whatever they see as true. The cave represents the society in which we live in. The people manipulating the shadows are the leaders of our society.
Around the world, there are many individuals that go through challenging obstacles in their daily lives. Some of these obstacles may be little to almost no importance, but others may be very serious and challenging to overcome. They can take a toll on a person's health and overall their wellbeing. An obstacle that various people struggle with in life is depression. In many ways, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is very similar to depression because the cave is relatively like someone's home, the slaves relate to the people suffering from depression, and the light coming from the sun and fire resembles happiness in life.
Humankind is filled with individuals testing each other and competing with one another to be the greatest, ignoring the reality of life. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato justifies this by displaying a parable that serves as a metaphor for life. This parable teaches the reader how people wish to remain in their comfort zones and disregard the truth. It portrays the struggle of facing different realities that alter the illusion of one's life. In the story, he described a group of prisoners chained inside a dark cave; their only source of light comes from a burning fire that is used to create shadows. These shadows display images that the prisoners each interpret as the reality; however, once one is released and is struck by the light, he
At first they are blinded by the sun, but when their eyes adapt they slowly realize the shadows within the cave were only part of a much bigger image. Therefore, insinuating we metaphorically live in a cave of illusions and shadows merely mimic what the form really is. The cave could also be considered a critique on the democracy of Athens. Ultimately, he comes to
In the story The Allegory of the Cave, Plato describes the perception of reality. He explains how to interpret ideas or objects in different perspectives. The story he tells about the cave could have influenced different modern day ideas. Some ideal examples might include religion, abuse, and imprisonment. Plato’s cave theory applies to all of these ideas and can show many different perspectives.
Explaining the Allegory of the Cave “Behind them are a burning fire and a half wall where puppeteers hold up puppets that cast shadows” (3). We live on a planet that individuals have discovered less than 5% of the oceans, which make up about 70% of the entire planet. With that being said, how are we expected to detectif we are merely being guided by a higher being. With what we are familiar with, our own live is prison for someone else. “But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known the last thing to be seen is the idea of good” (749). What humans consider a pleasureable experience now, could be something so miniscule and just simply apart of a path to an exotic reality. “To the chained men, the shadows are real; they have no conception of the objects that cause the shadows” (3). This could be the views we have now, but we don’t have the slightest clue as to how the Milky Way galaxy was created. Therefore, we don’t know precisely how or when could just simply vanish from existence. Again, there is no way of determining if the world is being guided by a higher being, but it is a
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" presents a vision of humans as slaves chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of things on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows are the only "reality" the slaves know. Plato argues that there is a basic flaw in how we humans mistake our limited perceptions as reality, truth and goodness. The allegory reveals how that flaw affects our education, our spirituality and our politics.