How Did Plato Write The Allegory Of The Cave

In Plato's “Allegory Of The Cave” he expresses that people are innately born with abilities like thinking and communicating, but their individual outlook on life is relative to their experiences in life; their educational awareness. Like the men chained in the “cave”, restricted to see only shadows of images cast by fire light and muffled echo sounds of voices; if one is restricted from experiencing new things, places or ideas, then in life their reality is limited to only the experiences they have had. The shadows the prisoners see on the wall are their reality not the actual objects that made the images. As our text “”Think” buy Judith A. Boss indicates, experience and facts we receive from additional resources is the basic level of thinking. Without continued facts and experiences, without education, our thinking is limited to our narrowed reality (shadows).

In Plato’s, Allegory of the cave, a key theory I found was the importance of education. Plato uses an “allegory to illustrate the dilemma facing the psyche in the ascent to knowledge of the imperishable and unchanging forms” (104) Based on my research of the republic, the allegory can reveal multiple hidden messages. Plato describes, ordinary mortals are chained within an underground chamber, which according to Fiero, represents the psyche imprisoned within the human body. These mortals can’t look sideways only straight ahead. They also can’t leave the cave and are facing a cave wall that they can see shadows from a fire of what they imagine are men. These mortals have been in this cave since childhood, which makes them believe the shadows themselves are the men, not a reflection of an actual man. Again, according to Fiero, the light, represents true knowledge, and the shadows on the walls of the cave represent the imperfect and perishable imitations of the forms that occupy the world of the senses.

“Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light, or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye…” (Plato). In this quote from Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” an instance in which a person comes face to face with something that confounds them, it can be due to two factors. First, it could be that they are knowledgeable and are paying attention and go to seeing ignorance. Or it could be that they are not knowledgeable and are faced with veracity. A situation such as this takes place in Plato’s

When the prisoner turns his head towards the light of the fire his eyes hurt him and he is confused because he is unable to see the objects of the shadows he had been subjected to his entire life. It is because of this pain and confusion that the prisoner wishes to return to the life that he is accustomed to, and the reality he knows, the world of the shadows. We are asked to envision the stubbornness displayed by this prisoner to leave the world of the shadows, a stubbornness which causes him to be dragged into the sunlight. Upon seeing the light of the sun the prisoner is temporarily blinded, unable to see anything around him, blinding him more than when he was a prisoner of the cave. Eventually the prisoner’s vision adjusts and he is able to see more clearly. His mind will first be able to recognize the shadows, then moving on to reflections of objects in the water, and lastly the objects themselves. This new sight leads the prisoner to question the colours and objects around him. He questions what it is that causes him to being able to see all the things he can, compared to only seeing poor reflections of objects in the cave. The prisoner eventually concludes that it is the sun which illuminates all around him and is the source of his sight.

While interpreting Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave’’ in which is a representation that described a narrative of the society of people in before Christ years. I realized how there was a major comparison of people in today’s society that reflected the same prisoner traits as the prisoners that were described in the dialogue. According to the Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” It described conditions of people chained at birth unable to function as independent individuals that were locked in a protracted dark cave. They were allowed to rotate their necks but could not stand up unless told to or leave the cave. Within this cave they could only watch a wall showing flash images and objects as if the prisoners were watching a play or movies at a theater. They believed that the pictures shown on the wall were factual in which they were just shadows of objects that were behind them. The objects reflected forms and puppet that were placed up by puppeteers to create shadows on the wall. The prisoners were unable to see the puppeteers and seemed as if they were watching a puppet show in the dark.

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

In part one, the cave represents people who are imprisoned and only are able to see whatever is ahead of them. Also, they seem to only interact with their shadows as the try hard to get toward the sunlight but can’t because

The allegory of the cave is one of Plato’s most famous pieces of work contained in his Republic. Plato sets the scene. There is a fire a screen and puppets. From a very young age these individuals are restrained with shackles on the wall. The puppeteers hold up the objects and the prisoners inside the cave can see the objects moving for their entire lives, however they are not the real objects.

There are captives who were born in the cave and know no other place. They are chained to a wall so that they may not move their heads and look behind them. There is a fire lit behind them, where trainers manipulate objects and cast shadows onto the wall. These trainers who control the shadows symbolize the leaders of society who control what others know and think. The prisoners only know these shadows, and they think of the shadows as the only tangible realities beside themselves.

Plato’s theory of the realm of Forms and Sensibility relates to his Allegory of Cave. In the section, Socrates - Plato’s favorite character - explains how human beings live in an underground cave. A cave where what is seen is real - shadows. However, someone escapes and because the sun is so bright, they look down and witness the reflections of nature. The reflection(s) are interrelated towards mathematical methods; moving away from the visible realm to the intelligible realm.

After reading Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, I basically learned that Plato “was a classical Greek philosopher from an old and distinguished Athenian family” and “Plato was Socrates’ most gifted student.” In other words, Plato was really intellectual and Plato’s family is presumably lived in a wealthy neighborhood in Athens that his education level in school is very good and excellent. Also, he shows “how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened” and he sees things at a different perspective like men passing along vessels and statues, objects being carried, etc. we can say that, he was able to observe and think things carefully by looking at a different angle and to take closer notes of how things can move or not.

The shadows represent people who accept the evidence through experience and disregard logical reasonings. We can see this directly through the prisoners believing the shadows are the truth due to their only prior knowledge being limited to life inside the cave. Whereas the game mentioned in the book symbolizes how the wisdom reiterated by the person whose inception of the truth is disoriented by the falsities. However, they continued to be are praised for empirical knowledge they present. An example of this would be when prisoner returns to the cave and present their advanced evidence of reality to the others.

Plato’s simile of the cave is intended to warn us that what we perceive to be reality is not necessarily what is true. He tells us we need to look further rather than simply accept that what we see is real. The idea of the prisoners being trapped in a cave, seeing only shadows, is similar to the idea that we are trapped in what we think is reality, seeing only imitations or ‘shadows’ of what is reality – the Forms. This analogy, along with Plato himself, has had a lasting impact. For example, A.N. Whitehead described Western Philosophy as ‘a series of footnotes to Plato’ – Plato has influenced the development of Western culture.

On the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners see nothing but the shadows and sometimes hear the noises coming from the people who form the shadows. The prisoners would associate the sounds and actions with the shadows, and they gave the shadows names. These shadows were all the prisoners knew in life, it was there reality, everything about these prisoners lives was about the shadows, even though they are merely appearances of real objects. Now, someone from the outside world takes a decision to release one of the prisoners.

In this paper, I will argue that Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a good representation of our relationship to the media in the United States.