Plato 's Allegory Of The Cave Essay

The Allegory of the Cave, also know as The Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave or Parable of the Cave is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The Republic “ as a theory concerning the perceptions of human kind and compares the effects of education to the lack of education on our observations. The passage is written as dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his teacher Socrates.

In the ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, Plato uses a philosophical situation to help us as the reader to examine our perception of life by what is around us. Plato uses such an abstract situation to show that we can mistake the information that we gain due to our position in a situation for truth.

Because of how we live, true reality is not obvious to most of us. However, we mistake what we see and hear for reality and truth. This is the basic premise for Plato抯 Allegory of the Cave, in which prisoners sit in a cave, chained down, watching images cast on the wall in front of them. They accept these views as reality and they are unable to grasp their overall situation: the cave and images are a ruse, a mere shadow show orchestrated for them by unseen men. At some point, a prisoner is set free and is forced to see the situation inside the cave. Initially, one does not want to give up the security of his or her familiar reality; the person has to be dragged past the fire and up the entranceway. This is a

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.

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.

“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

Plato’s logical strategy in the allegory of the cave is of deductive reasoning. Plato uses a cave containing people bound by chains which constrict their neck and legs in such a way that they are unable to turn around and there is a fire roaring behind them casting shadows on the wall. Since the prisoners cannot turn their heads to see what is casting the shadow the only thing they can perceive are the shadows and the sounds that seem to becoming from them. This is what Plato argues in the allegory of the cave “To them, I said, the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images.”(The Allegory of the Cave Plato). Since these prisoners know nothing outside of the cave they are ignorant of the “light” and are content on

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

Book VII of The Republic begins with Socrates’ “Allegory of the Cave.” The purpose of this allegory is to “make an image of our nature in its education and want of education” in other words, it illustrates Socrates’ model of education. In addition, the allegory corresponds perfectly to the analogy of the divided line. However, this Cave Analogy is also an applicable theme in modern times, for example, the movie, The Matrix, is loosely based off the Allegory.

This paper discussed The Allegory of The Cave in Plato's Republic, and tries to unfold the messages Plato wishes to convey with regard to his conception of reality, knowledge and education.

In the parable "The Allegory of the Cave," Plato suggests that the reality we think we know isn't reality at all. Plato uses an allegory to suggest we are like the prisoners in the cave, unenlightened. Our reality is based on our perception of shadowy objects. He says, "here is a parable to illustrate the degrees in which our nature may be enlightened or unenlightened." Plato believes only when we break our chains can we be truly enlightened. In this story, Plato asks us to picture a cave with prisoners that have been chained to look only at a wall since childhood.

In society today most people live by what is call “social norms”, most people follow these norms and some choose not to follow them. Social norms are certain things in life that everyone does to be accepted by their co-workers, family, friends and even strangers. Some may feel that they have to live by these norms to get through life without being rejected and to be known as a “normal” person, hence the word “norm”. If a person were to stray from this path and just do what they felt like doing and do what made them happy as an individual, would they be criticized? In Plato’s Allegory of a Cave he describes an example of people conforming to the norm they were born into and then shows the results of a person emerging from this community

The “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato represents the differences in the way we perceive reality and what we believe is real. In his story, Plato starts by saying that in a cave, there are prisoners chained down and are forced to look at a wall. The prisoners are unable to turn their heads to see what is going on behind them and are completely bound to the floor. Behind the prisoners, puppeteers hide and cast shadows on the wall in line with the prisoners’ sight, thus giving the prisoners their only sense of reality. What happens in the passage is not told from the prisoners’ point of view but is actually a conversation held between Socrates and Glaucon (Plato’s brother).

“See human beings as though they were in an underground cave-like dwelling” (193). Although Plato’s famous allegory of the cave doesn’t appear until Book VII of The Republic, its significance cannot be understated. The meaning behind the Greek philosopher’s imagery manifests itself throughout the rest of the work, specifically Book I. After outlining the description of the cave and demonstrating how the rest of The Republic dramatizes it, I argue that Plato (or Plato’s Socrates) is revealing a relationship that posits philosophy, which can only come about through mutual respect, as critical for the city’s well-being, but ultimately not enough just by itself.

Since ancient times, people have looked up to the sun as an important part to their lives. For example, the Aztecs built, Teotihuacan, to be able to locate the exact point where the sun will reach its highest point. In the Egyptian civilization, Egyptians worshiped the sun as if it was a god. They named the god Horus, who they offered many sacrifices including human flesh to satisfy the god (Ahmed 2010). All of these civilizations were interactive with their environment, but imagine if one knew only of the reality they believed inside of a cave not experiencing events within the real world. In Plato’s, Allegory of the Cave, he describes the scenario of prisoners kept isolated in a cave left to come up with a reality that they comprehended with the images that they saw in front of them. This applies especially to politics, because people are left to decipher the context of the speeches many of the government leaders give, but seldom explain their motives. The policies proposed by presidential candidates obscure the reality of their motives within their campaigns by appealing to the majority 's’ opinion on specific issues that the government needs to address.