Montesquieu's The Allegory Of The Cave

Montesquieu was an Enlightenment Figure who thought is was best to have a government with branches. This idea would make sure that laws got all the attention they needed. These branches are the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches. These branches, in order, would create laws, make sure laws are constitutional, and make sure laws make sense to have and if

Baron de Montesquieu ( mainly known as Montesquieu) was born around January 18, 1689 in La Brède, France, and died around February 10, 1755 in Paris, France. He was a widely read philosopher who believed that liberty was a natural right. Montesquieu’s accomplishments include introducing the idea of three different branches of government including making laws, enforcing laws, and interpreting laws. Montesquieu’s idea of the three branches of government contributed to the US Constitution as the separation of powers. Montesquieu was a writer, political philosopher, and a French lawyer.

Throughout this book, Montesquieu touched up on other governments and even earlier governments. He described ways a government should be made up, and he centered in on one idea. This idea was to create three branches of government which were the legislative, executive, and judicial. These were to be used for different causes and could check the others power so one branch doesn’t get too powerful and disrupt its citizens liberties. About 50 years later, these ideas would soon influence a growing nation’s government.

The works of Enlightenment thinkers Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau were extremely influential in laying the foundations for the government of the United States. Locke wrote about the natural rights that all men possess and the fundamental principles of a sound government in Second Treatise of Civil Government. Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws focused on the purpose and responsibilities of a government. Montesquieu also introduced the idea of separation of powers which is central to the organization of the US government today. In Social Contract, Rousseau focused on the idea of consent of the governed and a form of social contract in which individuals submit their rights to the entire community rather than to a king. The Founding Fathers incorporated

Montesquieu, a philosopher who lived in France during the reign of absolute monarchs, experienced the unjust division of political power between the wealthy nobles and king living in Versailles and the citizens of the third estate. He believed that instead of an absolute monarchy, political power should be divided between three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial, with a system of checks and balances to ensure that one group would not overpower the others. (Doc. 3) Montesquieu’s ideas would become the basis of the United States’ government and serve as an inspiration to the French third estate to support the decline of absolute monarchies. Another French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote The Social Contract in 1762 during the reign of French monarchs, stated that absolute authority removes the natural rights of humanity. (Doc. 5) As a firm believer of individual freedoms, Rousseau explained that a leader must gain the citizens’ consent to rule, as all citizens are equal due to logic and reasoning. Like Montesquieu, Rousseau’s ideas would inspire the French to overthrow its monarch during their revolution. His reasoning encouraged the French to accept a democratic government, where citizens elect a leader to rule them, unlike before where monarchs inherited political power. Frederick II,

In The Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu states, “Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments… It is only there where there is no abuse of power… To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.” (Secondat) His revolutionary idea of checks and balances inspired the founding fathers and served as the basis of the democracy they were to create. "They [the colonists] also studied Baron de Montesquieu, who wrote that government should have a balance of powers between executive, legislative and judicial branches.”

His way of thinking inspired the ideas of the Founding Fathers. Unlike Polybius, Montesquieu did not just classify government into three branches. He gave each branch a physical mannerism not based on political power but on the government’s manner of conducting policy. For example, the republic was based on virtue, the monarchy was based on honor, and tyranny was based on fear. Montesquieu dug down to the bare attributes of our government revealing the hidden behaviors that drive these three branches of government.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is also termed as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave. It was used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our nature in its education and want of education". It comprises of a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon. Socrates gives a description of a group of people who spent their lifetime facing a blank wall chained to the wall of a cave. These people saw and tried to assign forms of the shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them. These shadows as put by Socrates, are what the prisoners can view close to reality (Law 2003). He further compares a philosopher to the prisoner who is freed from the cave and comprehends that he can envision the true form of reality instead of the shadows which the prisoners saw in the cave and these shadows do not depict reality at all.

The "Allegory of the Cave" is Plato's attempt to explain the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Starting with the image of men in fetters that limit their movement and force them to look only ahead, this is the idea that all men and women are bound by the limits of their ignorance. Men and women are restricted by the limits of the education of their parents and the small amounts that can be culled from their environment. Images and shadows are representations of those things surrounding us that we see but do not understand because of our limited knowledge. As we obtain the ability to see things more clearly in the cave that is our ignorance, we start to then

On the surface of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” it is just a simple piece, but the main purpose of the piece is to explain people living in a world of face value and having individuals break free from the main idea to create a new sense of what the world is truly about. In here, Plato uses the writing style of allegory to encompass the use of imagery and symbolism to explain his purpose. He also uses very clever dialogue with constant repetition to represent a bigger idea about the philosophy with chained up people living in a cave of shadows.

The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. The thesis behind his allegory is the basic opinion that all we perceive are imperfect "reflections" of the ultimate Forms, which subsequently represent truth and reality. In his story, Plato establishes a cave in which prisoners are chained down and forced to look upon the front wall of the cave. In "Allegory of the Cave" there there are two elements to the story; the fictional metaphor of the prisoners, and the philosophical opinion in that the allegory is supposed to represent, hence presenting us with the allegory itself.

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).

Around the same time, Americans were also influenced by the works of Charles, the Baron de Montesquieu, a French political thinker. He believed that there were three types of governments; a monarchy (ruled by a king or queen), a republic (ruled by an elected leader) and a despotism (ruled by a dictator). In his book, The Spirit of Laws ,

Montesquieu believed that everything was made up of laws or rules that never changed. He wrote the book The Spirit of the Laws, which greatly covers the importance of separation of power in balancing the control of the

Montesquieu was a French philosopher who was very important in the American constitutional thought. He was a man who was referred to more that any other theoretical writer and wrote, "The Spirit of the Laws." Some of Montesquie's theories or views were that the Republic form of government was only