Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

The Republic is considered to be one of Plato’s most storied legacies. Plato recorded many different philosophical ideals in his writings. Addressing a wide variety of topics from justice in book one, to knowledge, enlightenment, and the senses as he does in book seven. In his seventh book, when discussing the concept of knowledge, he is virtually addressing the cliché “seeing is believing”, while attempting to validate the roots of our knowledge. By his use of philosophical themes, Plato is able to further his points on enlightenment, knowledge, and education. In this allegory, the depictions of humans as they are chained, their only knowledge of the world is what is seen inside the cave. Plato considers what would happen to people

In his essay, “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato, argues his idea of how to distinguish the reality and truth from that which is a falsehood. Most essentially, he finds it as important to enlighten others that may remain in that

Both texts incorporate justice into the motif of knowledge versus ignorance. In “The Allegory of the Cave,” the sunlight represents knowledge gained, and the goodness that can be achieved as a result. At first, when the man was released, his eyes were not able to adjust to the brightness of the sun; however, after he was able to adapt and become enlightened, he gained access to what can be defined as Ideal Forms. This term can be interpreted as the perfect visions of society: peace, happiness, equality, and justice. In his dialogue, Plato explains that,“just like the sun outside the cave, these Ideal Forms do exist and could be achieved in society, but mankind is bound by its flaws perception of these ideas, and therefore, we fail to enact the Ideal Forms in our lives or in societies” (227). Mankind has misconceptions of the Ideal Forms, as illustrated by the men in the cave that were bound to distorted shadows as their only insight into the world, whereas the man released was able to achieve these perfect visions. The men left in ignorance

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.

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

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.

The main idea presented by Plato in his infamous Allegory of the Cave is that the average person's perceptions are severely limited by personal perspective. Plato uses the metaphorical situation of prisoners chained together in a way that limited their visual perception to the shadows projected from behind them onto a wall in front of them. He uses that metaphor to illustrate that perspective determines perceptions and also that once an individual achieves a wider or more accurate perspective, it becomes difficult for him to communicate with those who are still limited to the narrower perspective that he may have once shared with them. Plato meant his allegory to apply to the limitations of perspective attributable to social experiences as well as to the absence of formal education and training, particularly in logical reasoning. Plato believed that logical reasoning is a skill that must be learned through formal training and that without adequate training, it is substantially impossible to understand the logical perspective.

In order to understand the moral fabric of the world, it is important to question any information that is given to an individual, instead of blindly accepting the majority opinion and giving it full credibility and validity based on other people’s opinions. Plato’s work, The Republic introduces the allegory of the cave, which is metaphorical scenario that attempts to explain the importance of questioning norms that may seem trivial. Plato illustrates a cave where bounded prisoners have lived all their lives in seclusion, away from the outside world. In their immobile state, they can only look at the wall in front of them which is illuminated by a small fire that has been going on behind them. The wall constantly projects shadows of people

Plato (427-347 B.C) believes that the human good is gaining all wisdom and attaining the ultimate truth while being able to share this wisdom with others. He believes when you find the ultimate truth, the good is revealed and understood. The goal for understanding the good is to continue to spread the good to others so that they too can attain wisdom. In this essay, I will depict Plato’s view of the good through two of his works – The Allegory of the Cave and The Apology.

In Book VII of Plato’s Republic, Socrates continues to venture towards a more complete portrayal of the good. To do this, Socrates presents his most intricate, yet his most important figure: the Allegory of the Cave. Socrates calls on the interlocutors to imagine a dimly lit cave in which a group of prisoners are chained behind a wall in such a way that they cannot move and are forced to stare at a wall all day. Thanks to a small fire, the prisoners are able to see the shadows of their imprisoners and images their imprisoners projected on the wall. Having always been in the cave, the prisoners believe the shadows are true; similarly, the echoed voices they hear, they also believe to be true. One day, an individual prisoner is released, the secrets of the cave are unveiled, and he is lead up into the sunlight, which blinds their unfamiliar eyes. After this enlightened prisoner has looked upon, pondered, and adjusted to the true light of the sun, he feels that he must return to the cave. However, once he has returned, the enlightened prisoner finds his new eyes are ill suited for the cave and is viciously ridiculed by the other prisoners.

Most individuals have something that hinders them from increasing their knowledge, whether it be a mental or physical issue. Some people are afraid of growth, some people scare others so they will not learn more, and some people have reached the limits of their intellectual capabilities. Whatever the issue might be, society’s rules, normalities, and the people in it play a major role in the overall extensive grasp for knowledge. Throughout life almost all people search for information, how that information is attained and what is learned from it differs from person to person. For example, in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, people are chained inside of a cave since childhood by their captors who distort the prisoner’s sense of reality by playing

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

Greek philosopher Plato, student of Socrates, has been regarded for thousands of years as one of the greatest philosophers; with his work dating back to the fourth century. Since then, his work has been extensively studied and applied to modern day issues in representations and society. Accompanied by Socrates and his most acclaimed student, Aristotle, they have helped pave the way of the modern day structure of Western philosophy. Plato’s simile of the cave is a theory that Plato developed regarding the way that humans perceive things. In his theory, Plato identifies between those who mistake opinion for the truth and those who are omniscient to the real truth.

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.

Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.