Plato's Allegory Of The Cave By Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is he finally reaches cognitive though. He thinks about his past life and the other still living this life of lies and pities them. Plato also suggest that the prisoners play a sort of “guessing” game of naming which object was which and what would appear next. It is settled that to the freed prisoner these games would be meaningless and if he were compelled to renter the cave and go against the ways of the cave, everyone who believes the way of the cave, as life would think he is crazy and try to kill

His body isn’t ready for the direct sunlight and his mind cannot comprehend the world in comparison to what he felt he knew. In time, the man is able to see that all of the previously “known” information he had was completely false but also that he must start a different journey in order to find himself as the way of life he was previously use to, in which guessing was the way of judging knowledge, is ineffective and useless to him now. Finally, the prisoner returns to the cave with a new base of knowledge. He tried to share this information with his fellow prisoners but after hearing about his travels and that they were in fact wrong the prisoned men said to him that “up he went and down he came without eyes, and that it was better to not even think of ascending” ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974) . He is then met with resistance in offering them help and freedom from their binds. They threaten “if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender and put him to death”, it is as if they feel that his “loss of sight” is death to them and they are perfectly happy with the information that they know to be true ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974) .

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum uses horror and suspicion to build up not only the storyline, but the persona of the narrator in which is also the prisoner. The characteristics of the prisoner ties within the story to create trippy feelings of fear and unassertiveness of whether or not he is truly safe. From the trials that the prisoner has faced, his characteristic of resourcefulness, pessimistic, and terror are revealed and play a salient part of his slick escape.

Prisoners, watching life unfold on the cave wall in front of them, accepting what they see as truth, as reality, are literally people. Every average person in this world is a prisoner, chained down. These chains that bind the prisoners to the floor are beliefs. Take clothes for instance, a person may not have very much money, so they should not spend enormous amounts on clothing, but the fear of not being accepted due to out of style clothes requires said person to spend too much money on their clothes. The fear spoken of is derivative of the person抯 beliefs, holding them to abide by the cultural norms, in this case purchasing over priced clothing. The prisoners are gazing at shadows on the wall, until he or she breaks free. To break free in this world, you must look at objects, individuals, cities and societies, even the universe as a whole, with reason. Do not simply rely on perceptions and senses to grasp concepts.

On the surface of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” it is just a simple piece, but the main purpose of the piece is to explain people living in a world of face value and having individuals break free from the main idea to create a new sense of what the world is truly about. In here, Plato uses the writing style of allegory to encompass the use of imagery and symbolism to explain his purpose. He also uses very clever dialogue with constant repetition to represent a bigger idea about the philosophy with chained up people living in a cave of shadows.

The similarities between The Cave and The Matrix are too uncanny. The description of the cave above, which is discussed in the first paragraph of Plato’s seventh book, can be portrayed similarly in

The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. The thesis behind his allegory is the basic opinion that all we perceive are imperfect "reflections" of the ultimate Forms, which subsequently represent truth and reality. In his story, Plato establishes a cave in which prisoners are chained down and forced to look upon the front wall of the cave. In "Allegory of the Cave" there there are two elements to the story; the fictional metaphor of the prisoners, and the philosophical opinion in that the allegory is supposed to represent, hence presenting us with the allegory itself.

Captivity is a subject that has been discussed thoroughly by many people. Captivity is the main concept touched in Daniel Quinn’s novel, Ishmael, and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato makes the compelling argument that people are captives of the world of ignorance. Ishmael complements Plato’s allegory by agreeing that there are two groups of people, that it would be difficult to distinguish the truth, and that people are being deceived.

Plato’s logical strategy in the allegory of the cave is of deductive reasoning. Plato uses a cave containing people bound by chains which constrict their neck and legs in such a way that they are unable to turn around and there is a fire roaring behind them casting shadows on the wall. Since the prisoners cannot turn their heads to see what is casting the shadow the only thing they can perceive are the shadows and the sounds that seem to becoming from them. This is what Plato argues in the allegory of the cave “To them, I said, the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images.”(The Allegory of the Cave Plato). Since these prisoners know nothing outside of the cave they are ignorant of the “light” and are content on

Materialistic items play a key role in the world today. People use these items, such as technological appliances, to fulfill their daily wants and needs. However, most people do not realize the negative effects of such a heavy reliance on material goods. In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato shares his idea that an overdependence on items can negatively affect ethical decisions. This idea is discussed in “The Veldt,” by Ray Bradbury, The Truman Show, by Peter Weir, and Daniel Key’s novel, Flowers for Algernon. Throughout all three stories, characters greatly rely on items and other people, leading them to make unethical decisions. In some cases, people are objectified as a result of being needed, desired, and treated unfairly. In “The Veldt,” The Truman Show, and Flowers for Algernon, an overreliance on items leads to a loss of focus on morals and what is ethically important.

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

Plato assumed the existence of human life in a cave. In his view, human beings are tied as prisoners in a cave and they could only see the shadows of real

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.

Once one of the prisoner’s is released, he is forced to look at the fire and the objects that once made up his perceived reality, and realizes that the new images he is made to acknowledge are now the accepted forms of reality.

“See human beings as though they were in an underground cave-like dwelling” (193). Although Plato’s famous allegory of the cave doesn’t appear until Book VII of The Republic, its significance cannot be understated. The meaning behind the Greek philosopher’s imagery manifests itself throughout the rest of the work, specifically Book I. After outlining the description of the cave and demonstrating how the rest of The Republic dramatizes it, I argue that Plato (or Plato’s Socrates) is revealing a relationship that posits philosophy, which can only come about through mutual respect, as critical for the city’s well-being, but ultimately not enough just by itself.