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.
Those chained down represent the majority of the human population. They watch shadows created by the people in front of the fire. The people in front of the fire can be seen as the rich, the media, the government, or all three combined.
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.
“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
In Plato’s allegory, he begins with a set of three people, prisoners of the cave that have never seen anything other than what the cave and their binding allows. “The prisoners are tied to some rocks, their arms and legs bound and their head is tied so that they cannot look at anything but the stonewall in front of them” ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974). What they are able to see is shadows of a fire and those people or animals- free to the
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato tells a story of a group of prisoners living in a cave. The prisoners have lived in the cave since birth, never once seeing the light. These prisoners are chained to a wall, being able to see nothing but the the wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and prisoners, is a walkway.
Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”: A Summary Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave” is about Glaucon and Socrates having a discussion about slaved men and their perception of knowledge. These slaved men have been chained by their necks, arms and ankles since birth and the knowledge they pertain is from the sounds and imagery they have seen that echo off a wall in a fire lit cave. In this cave people pass through on the walkway in front of the fire pit. They carry things on their backs and heads from the market and talk to one another.
Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”: Who: Plato, Greek philosopher and student of Socrates. What: Wrote “The Republic” containing “The Allegory of the Cave”, which is a dialogue Plato wrote down between Socrates and Glaukon. It is an idea or theory by Plato on what is real.
Behind the prisoners is a ledge and behind the ledge is a fire. People that are not prisoners carry objects in front of the fire which casts a shadow. The prisoners can only
Plato showed an interesting concept in his work, Allegory of the Cave. It shows that even over thousands of years ago the process of thinking and knowledge is still the same. The same institutions and influences shape up the way ideas are conceived. One of the biggest questioned idea is morality. Morality is something that is universal
The people in the cave are everyday men who think they are seeing the true object being placed in front of them even though they are just the shadows of the objects. Once the man that was unchained and freed to see the real reality of life and objects, he realizes that what he grew to know was not true. The others questioned his statements. They began to laugh and believe that he was crazy to believe such a thing. The men left to see the shadows preferred to remain chained and to see only shadows. Only the man was willing to free himself from the shackles and look at what life really was.
Despite its benefits, it is worth noting that discussions on the validity of moral values may cause division. This conflict is beautifully displays in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In this story, individuals dwelling in a cave react violently when presented with new information that opposes their held values and beliefs. Plato exhibits through this parable the rifts formed between people when arguments on moral values occur. However, even with the possibility of negative outcomes, it is more beneficial to propose new ideas and start discussion with the potential for improvement than simply ignoring viewpoints that differ from the moral philosophy of others.
He says that the people have been in this cave since childhood, and they know nothing about the world outside. Plato tells that these people are chained to the cave walls and they can only see the shadows that are cast by the fires burning in the distance. He goes on to describe what would happen if these prisoners were to be released. Plato says that at first they will struggle because they are not accustomed to the bright light of day. However, he says that soon they will soon become familiar with the light of the world around them (Plato 1-2).
Part I The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's interpretation of individuals that are illiterate, or blindly following what the majority of others believe to be true. Every element in the cave represents the course to enlightenment beginning with the path that symbolizes the path to understanding. Plato regards it as conviction that those who inform themselves on matters of the mind and matters of the physical world can elevate themselves to freedom (Lawhead, 2009) .The shadows that are objects that appear to the prisoners are merely flickers of what the prisoners interpret them to be, this characterizing an individuals limited view of the world. First comes imagination and then what our limited thought or belief.
The prisoners are isolated from the rest of the world of open-minded and enlightened people living outside in the daylight. They are held quiescent by the chains and “can only see before
In this allegory, Plato displays a hypothetical situation of Socrates speaking with Glaucon about the importance of knowledge and how a lack of it can severely affect a person or group of people. He does this by describing prisoners in a cave whose necks and legs are fettered making them unable to move. There is a wall behind them with a fire behind that. Things are moved in between the fire and the wall so shadows are cast on the wall the prisoners are facing. Since the prisoners only see the shadows, that is what they view as real.
Although Plato’s and Aristotle’s moral theories in many ways are quite similar, I will be analyzing their key differences in correlation to the Form of the Good. I will be looking at the two stories that are well recognized by these two men in order to look closer at what they thought would lead to our happiness, joy, beauty, and true knowledge in this life. To understand this, we need to first have some understanding of Plato’s doctrine of the forms. The Allegory of The Cave is a concept put forward by Plato regarding human perception.