Essay On Allegory Of The Cave

“Choosing a Map for Life,” by M. Scott Peck, “The Allegory of the Cave,” by Plato, “The Truman Show” and “Salvation” by Langston Hughes describe the views and perspective of the reality in our world. We have to get out, discover the world around and revise it. By setting up a map or goal and revising it in the world, will make us to control our perceptions and draw close to the reality.

“The Allegory of the cave” designed by Plato, one of the utmost eminent Western philosophers. Not only, he constructed an arch that in time will set a luminous path for the western theories to flourish in the future. Additionally, Plato viewed the world as a replica of the celestial world, which turned him to realize there is one divine being or one divine truth that humans should attempt to find. Therefore, this essay will discuss the implications of Plato’s Cave allegory in reflection on how humans might be blind to the truth, as a result of the unseen shackles that restrain them distant from the real truth, and how they might eventually feel and become more human without them.

The Allegory of the Cave Plato, is recognized as one of the reputable and admired philosophers of his time and of all time. Dating back from ancient Greece, Plato and philosophers of the like, attempted to answer life’s deepest questions like “what is reality” and “where are we going.” Through deep thought and debate, these philosophers were able to formulate opinions and theories; opinions and theories that are still discussed in today’s modern society. One such example to discuss life and the truth is The Allegory of the Cave, a portion of one of Plato’s most famous works, The Republic. Through The Allegory of the Cave, Plato is able to explain the “The Forms” and knowledge in a context that people of ancient Greece were able to comprehend.

Reality is the most intriguing concept in philosophy; throughout the ages, philosophers have been trying to understand the difference between real and unreal things. Philosophers allocate a whole branch of philosophy, Metaphysics, to study the nature of reality and existence. However, Greek philosophers, like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, were the first to question the nature of reality and its ultimate form. In the “Republic”, Plato tried to explain the idea of reality throughout his allegory of the cave; the allegory represents various philosophical ideas about the metaphysics of reality, epistemology, and education.

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).

People seem to think that everything that happens to them everyday is real. The question is, though, “What is real?”. Is everything you see everyday really real or is it fake? We might see fantasies that other people or machines have created for us. Maybe we are the ones that are not enlightened yet. Numerous essays and films have been produced on this subject. One essay is “The Allegory of the Cave” written by Plato in 360 B.C. Also, the movie The Matrix was filmed in 1999. Even though many differences can be drawn between “The Allegory of the Cave” and The Matrix, there are many similarities as well.

In “The Allegory of the Cave”, the focus is based on prisoners who are chained up in a cave and can only see the shadows of the real world. In this story one prisoner is released into the “real world” and tries to enlighten the other prisoners. In The Matrix, the main character Neo is living in a world controlled by a computer program and he does not know. He is brought into the real world by people that have been enlightened and he plans to help the other people. Even though The Matrix and “The Allegory of the Cave are set in different points in time and show some different points of view , they also have comparable plots, characters, and symbols.

“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

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.

The main variance in The Matrix, Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and Descartes’s Meditation I, is that in the movie, there is a way to get back to the world of reality; Descartes and Plato only suggest that we are either dreaming or have been tricked, and make us speculate if there really is a way back. They propose that the world we know is not real at all, just a mere illusion.

Many people question themselves when they think they aren’t right about something because everyone else around them believes the opposite. What you think might be truer than you think because the world tends to believe what they want to, and not the truth. In Plato’s philosophical example of life in the “Allegory of the Cave” he explains and questions his views on human existence and the reality of things. Everyone has a different reality and a way that they perceive things but other factors like the media influence and persuade us. The media has the power through the radio, television, or other technologies to tell us things that might not even be true but we have to believe them because we don’t know what is true. The

Plato’s book, The Republic, in the excerpt regarding “The Allegory of the Cave,” and Rene Descartes’s book, Meditations on First Philosophy, in the excerpt concerning “Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt,” have influenced the epistemological realm. Furthermore, they have influenced Hollywood. For instance, in 1999, Andy and Lana Wachowski directed a film, The Matrix, that had similar epistemological attributes. The Matrix contains similar and contrasting features with “The Allegory of the Cave” and “Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt,” and, through the storyline of The Matrix, truth seems to be superior to bliss.

What is truth? What is the truth, of what truth is? There are many answers to this question. Each answer may lie different, inside of each person. Only you know what truth is to you. In this essay I will describe what truth is to me, how I verify truth, and whether I believe truth to be good or bad. I will then compare and contrast my idea of truth, to that of Plato’s truth, from his ideas in “Allegory Of The Cave.”

There are a number of similarities found in certain sections of Plato's The Republic, Renee Descartes' Meditations I, and the 1999 major motion picture The Matrix. The basic tenet that fuels Socrates' Allegory of the Cave and the other two previously mentioned works is that reality through the human senses cannot be trusted, may not be true, and cannot necessarily be validated through the human senses.

Throughout history philosophers and the entertainment industry alike have challenged people to look at what they consider reality and what reality actually without our own influences. The Matrix took this idea and brought it to the forefront of philosophy once again. It causes society to once again face the debate if whether the harshness or reality or the bliss of the ignorance is better. Comparing Plato, Descartes, and The Matrix allows us to expand on this idea of reality.