Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

In these, he tested to see how wise so-called wise men were and each and every time he claimed that these men were not wise at all. Socrates went and tested all sorts of men from poets, politicians, and artisans. He claimed that all were inferior to him because they claimed to know much when they knew not much at all. And that, although he did not know all the tings these men knew, he was still wiser. He went so far as to tell these men what he thought, and even stated all these feelings in the court. This, no doubt, led to his general hatred more than any other act. But I wonder, had anyone ever questioned Socrates? And on what basis did he judge wisdom? Socrates claimed that a man who thought themselves the wisest were the least, but that is exactly what he was, a man who thought himself the wisest. Maybe he was the type of person to dislike any man who’s intellect challenged his own. “Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general.”

“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

When Socrates first hears of this, he finds it to be some kind of joke so he sets out to find others who truly are smarter than him. He starts out with the politicians, because they all think they are the best. However, after questioning them he comes to realize they know nothing they thought they did. The second group he questions is the poets. He asks the poets to explain their poems to him but they couldn?t that is when he realized they were just writing based on inspiration and not wisdom so they have nothing to back up their poems.

This quote is a great illustration of how Socrates does not want people to grow stagnant in their personal or spiritual growth. Rather, Socrates wants them to flourish, to expose themselves to new ideas and knowledge so they can become better people. This line is the best example of how much Socrates believed in critical examination as not just a way of thinking, but as a lifestyle and a way of improvement. By revealing their flaws, Socrates gave people an opportunity to better and enrich themselves. Socrates believed it was his divine duty to nurture this practice of self-analysis.

Socrates went out to see if their was anyone smarter than himself. He went out to seek the poets, politicians ,and artisans. He concluded that humans are foolish and do not know anything about wisdom.

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

Socrates begins by discussing why his previous accusers accused him of what he did. “I will try to show you what has caused this reputation and slander...is none other than a certain kind of wisdom” (20d, 23a). His next point on human wisdom, is that it is not very valuable; “That one of you, O human beings, is wisest who, like Socrates, has become cognizant that in truth he is worth nothing with respect to wisdom” (23b). Socrates still believes however, that thinking about and examining wisdom is extremely important to live a fulfilling life.

In order to do this, he goes about Athens questioning those he believes to be wiser than him, including politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Upon this questioning, he discovers that even those perceived as the wisest actually know far less than one would expect. Even the craftsmen, who have much practical wisdom in their respective fields, see their success as merely a tribute to their vast knowledge of many subjects. This, Socrates claims, is not true wisdom. Human wisdom can be described as the acknowledgement and acceptance that one does not know everything, nor is one capable of knowing everything. This, however, does not mean that people should sit idly by, never pursuing wisdom, for it is still vital to the attainment of a good life, which should be the ultimate goal of mankind.

(Pg 26, 21b) Socrates believes what the Oracle actually meant when he said that no one was wiser than Socrates, is that human wisdom is worth little or nothing and he uses his name as an example. (Pg 27, 23 b). When examining the quote, “This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless.”

“The lowest level is ‘not being wise, but seeming wise, especially to oneself.’” During his trial, Socrates explains his conquest to understand human wisdom and search to discover what the oracle meant which said, “[Socrates is] the wisest man in the world.” (Apology 21b) He set out to understand what the oracle meant by questioning the people who had well known reputations for wisdom. When he interviewed them, he noticed that in they only appeared to be wise when in fact they weren’t.

Enlightenment is a signifier for the action or state of obtaining or having obtained spiritual knowledge or insight. Although the specifics of the signified change slightly dependent upon time, place, and person, enlightenment of this type is a concept present in many different civilizations. Plato's The Republic is once such work that deals with the idea of enlightening an uninformed population, particularly in the image of the cave. The image of the cave was central to the Honors Lecture on The Republic that was given by Dr. Michael Palmer.

He interrogates a series of politicians, poets, and craftsmen. As one would expect, Socrates' investigation reveals that those who claim to have knowledge either do not really know any of the things they claim to know, or else know far less than they proclaim to know. The most knowledgeable of the bunch, the craftsmen, know about their craft, but they claim to know things far beyond the scope of their expertise. Socrates, so we are told, neither suffers the vice of claiming to know things he does not know, nor the vice of claiming to have wisdom when he does not have wisdom. This statement goes back to the idea of wisely ignorant human beings because it goes to show how being so wise like the craft men can really help but backfire being to wise which can be interrupted as being

Plato, a famous Greek philosopher who wrote the 'Allegory of the Cave', attempted to answer some of these philosophical questions, most notably about the nature of reality. He tells the 'Allegory of the Cave' as a conversation between his mentor, Socrates, who inspired many of Plato's philosophical theories, and one of Socrates' students, Glaucon. They discuss the meaning of reality and how we as humans can be blinded by the dark shadows of reality. The shadows of the objects in the story represented society’s way of telling us what is real, and what is normal.

Each of these stages also represents Plato’s main points about his idea of our society and what we must do to improve ourselves. To begin with, Socrates (in the story) points out that the prisoners are recalling names or details for the shadows casted by the fire; when in fact, this is incorrect because the images are not real. However, whichever prisoner could guess what object would appear next would be more respected by his or hers fellow peers. Plato is arguing that by constituting a name for artifacts, our society wrongly assumes that we understand the nature of things. Then, Socrates presents a hypothetical situation, with postulated reactions, of a prisoner being freed from the cave and entering a new world so full of bright light that it “blinds him”.

Plato’s allegory of the cave has a simple premise. People chained down, watching shadows in a cave, while the way out is hard to reach. But the simple premise has much deeper meaning. One of the reasons that Plato’s allegory of the cave has been so well received throughout history is that humans are always seeking the truth, mich like the human’s who escape the cave in the allegory. The allegory can be seen as a metaphor for many situations, but for my purposes we will use a very generic explanation of the cave.