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Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Plato’s “Allegory of The Cave” is a written dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, brother of Plato, in which Socrates exposes the lack of education in human nature by invoking the image of prisoners chained up and sitting in a dark cave. The prisoners, whom have been imprisoned in the cave since childhood, can only see straight ahead and are forced to watch dancing shadows on the cave wall which are created by a fire that sits below and behind them, never to see the sun or the outside world which in this allegory, represents the idea of good and being. Socrates goes on to say that the prisoners represent the vast majority of the human race and the puppeteers who control the shadows represent poets, lawgivers, etc. which guide the prisoners and can shape their thoughts and beliefs because the puppeteers control the shadows, which in turn, control the prisoners. Although in the Plato’s allegory, it is said that the “Sun” is the form of good and to see what the light shines upon and what it reveals is to be enlightened, I claim that experiencing the form of good itself is not what represents enlightenment but, it is the act, the journey in which one must take and experience to be …show more content…

And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?(REPUBLIC

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