Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

In Plato’s allegory of the Cave, he describes how prisoners are chained in cave and they can only see what’s in front of them. They can’t even see themselves or the people besides them, the only thing visible to them are the shadows of the people carrying objects and the animals. The shadows were the only things that the prisoners knew. One of the prisoners breaks free and leaves the cave. As he goes into the real world he is blinded by the bright light and the reality of life. The prisoner saw that the life he onced lived was a lie. We are blinded by the lies and things we want to believe. If we were to see the truth, then we would return to tell the others, but they would not believe us.

The one prisoner finally escaping the cave to the outside light shows symbolism as a higher level of philosophy. Returning to the cave was the choice of the prisoner, he felt compelled to spread his new knowledge. Plato’s uses him to represent breaking free from the normal mindset shared. Plato’s argument stands since the cave represents lack of expanding on common knowledge. Even after the prisoner returns to express his findings to others, individuals with philosophies different than the norm is dismissed because of their level above previous things thought of as true.

Moreover, “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato illustrates a civilization of physically restricted prisoners. Creating a setting in which underground prisoners are only exposed to a wall, its shadows (whom they see as beings), and the people around them, Plato displays a society of ignorant people who only know what they are able to physically see and experience every single day. However, once liberated by other freed people, these prisoners are able to attain knowledge more easily, and slowly, their individual truths become closer to reality. Despite initially being perplexed and irritated with the realization that what they saw and knew as prisoners is not the actuality of how things are, they, consequently, gain the ability to understand more about the world with their newfound knowledge. Thus, the freed people attempt to free the other prisoners from their chains, and expose them

After the prisoner has gained new found knowledge, he feels pity for those who are still imprisoned and unaware of the world around them. He knows now that their skills and perceptions are useless in the real world. Plato says “…when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?” (p. 3). It is unfortunate that most people are unable to leave the cave. However, those who do have the privilege of learning the truth have an obligation to go back and share with those who remain in darkness - to share with them as much truth as they are capable of understanding. “…before his eyes had become steady would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he

In book VII of Plato's most popular work, The Republic, Plato symbolically describes a fictitious story in the form of dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, in which prisoners have been chained in an underground cave and have been restricted to only viewing the cave wall in front of them. Far off behind them, men are carrying figures of animals and different objects so that their shadows are casted on a wall ahead of them. One of the prisoners are liberated and walks toward the mouth of the cave into the light. He begins to notice that the shadows he has seen his entire life are not real; there is a world other than the cave.

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.

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

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.

The film takes a more elliptical, almost a poetical approach to the characters’ lives it shows on screen than the audience might have anticipated from a film of this sort. The whole aim for the editing of this film was to make the audience see the protagonists’ life from his point of view – they wanted the audience to be inside his head, seeing what he’s seeing, hearing what he’s hearing, etc.

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 the story, “Allegory of the cave,” by Plato, it explains how there were human beings living in a cave chained up facing the wall since they were children. As they grew older all they were able to see were the shadows of people crossing animals, tools, statues etc. on a bridge behind them. Since they could not turn their heads to look, their mind couldn't wrap around what they were really looking at. As if they weren't looking into reality. They had no knowledge of the outside world what so ever. This passage focuses more on justice, truth, and beauty. When a prisoner is released into the real world, the concept of reality is disorienting. The way we can reflect off this in the new world and society today, is the fact that most people are

Part I: In Plato’s allegory of the cave there are three areas. The first area in the cave is dark and is where the prisoners dwell. All they see are the shadows of the figures and hear the voices from the higher level in the cave. The third level is outside of the cave where the light of the sun is. Each area of the cave represents a level of reality according to Plato. The lower level of the cave is an allegory for where people, many times the majority, are dwelling in their own understandings of what is real. They only see the shadows or distortions of truths that are found in the higher levels of the cave. They do not question these distortions and therefore remain in the unenlightened darkness of what they believe to be true. This

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).

Michael Sampson PHI 111 Part I Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is meant to illustrate the relationship between the two levels of knowledge and the two levels of reality. The first level of reality is pure intellect (outside the cave) and the second is the sense experience (inside the cave). Plato believed that human beings see the world through the eyes of the prisoners in the cave and because of that we do not fully have an understanding of the world around us.

Plato’s most important idea in his ethical theory is bringing knowledge, ideas, and truth into a reality. In the story, “Allegory of the Cave,” it describes prisoners being trapped inside a cave, not being able to move their heads (what the call “fettered”). The prisoners are only able to do is look at a wall forever with shadows passing by from the opposite side of that cave. The purpose of the prisoners staring at the wall and watching shadows pass by is to understand the real world versus the world inside the cave. The world outside of the cave is where the light is, where they will understand that it is the real world compared to inside of the cave where everything’s unreal. If prisoners escape, they will run out to the real world only