Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Ayn Rand in the novel Anthem and Plato in the “Allegory of the Cave” assert that Equality 7-2521 and the prisoners lived in a dystopian society where they were prohibited from knowledge. Rand and Plato support their assertion by describing how both of them had knowledge on what they were allowed to know. The people who lived in Equality's society were like prisoners of the cave since knowledge was kept from them too. Rand and Plato's purposes are to inform the reader how having more knowledge gives a person individuality and differentiates him from others. Rand and Plato write in an informative tone for the people who live in a dystopian and utopian society in order to inform how everyone should have knowledge of how the real world is.

“The Allegory of the Cave “is a theory put forward by Plato concerning human perception. People who are unenlightened have limited self- knowledge as this is illustrated by the three prisoners who live in a darkened cave without ever questioning what may exist outside their dwellings. The prisoners are chained in a particular way such that they can only see the wall they are facing. Emerging from the wall are passerby shadows created by the effect of the fire and the people walking with various objects behind them. To the restrained prisoners, the shadows are what encompassed their reality therefore making their lives a complete illusion. As a result, Plato distinguishes between people who mistake

The stages of Plato’s “cave journey” begin with people stuck in a dark cave. They are chained from birth, unable to move their bodies and can only see straight ahead. A fire behind them creates the shadows of objects being flashed on a wall in front of them. They have never seen the real objects, so they believe the shadows of the objects to be real. The people stuck in the cave begin a guessing game; trying to guess which objects will appear next, and whoever guess correctly would be praised by the others. At the mouth of the cave there is a glimmer of light, and the possibility of life outside the cave.

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 prisoners have been in these conditions since their earliest stages of life. The cave, the wall, and the chains are all the prisoners have ever known. Behind the prisoners, there was a raised path. Above the walkway was a platform, where there was a fire burning, and in front of the fire, was a parapet, which as Plato described it , was like that of the screens Puppeteers use to hide themselves and have the puppets be visible . Each and every day, the prisoners see nothing, but the shadows of the objects and people passing between them and the fire. For their entire lives, the prisoners are exposed to nothing but those images and the sounds made by those walking around. These shadows are all they have ever known, in essence; these shadows are their only “reality”. As time passed, the prisoners would grow accustomed to these sights, later on the prisoners would match the objects with names and the familiar sounds to the images of the shadows (514; Appendix A). In discussing the allegory with Glaucon, Socrates toys around the concept of what could happen to a prisoner should they be released after having lived their lives in the cave, with the only knowledge the possess of the world, are the images and sounds by the wall.

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.

When the prisoner makes his way back into the cave, he will have to readjust to the darkness, since he has been out in the daylight- however, he knows this does not matter as he has seen what is beyond this cave. The prisoners would not want be freed: the cave is all they have come to know, it is their reality; the cave is where they are most comfortable. Leaving the cave would mean they would have to adjust to new factors and face the fact that their whole understanding was based upon an illusion. Even if the prisoner goes back to tell the other prisoners about all that he has seen in the world outside the cave, they won’t believe him; they will not understand what he is speaking of. Those who live in the cave are accustomed to that life only; if someone leaves and discovers that reality is drastically different, then that person is going to have a hard time convincing the others that there is anything other than what they know. The person who tells them otherwise will be criticized and labeled "crazy" by the inhabitants of the cave because they simply don't know any

Humankind is filled with individuals testing each other and competing with one another to be the greatest, ignoring the reality of life. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato justifies this by displaying a parable that serves as a metaphor for life. This parable teaches the reader how people wish to remain in their comfort zones and disregard the truth. It portrays the struggle of facing different realities that alter the illusion of one's life. In the story, he described a group of prisoners chained inside a dark cave; their only source of light comes from a burning fire that is used to create shadows. These shadows display images that the prisoners each interpret as the reality; however, once one is released and is struck by the light, he

Plato’s allegory of the cave, located in Book VII of The Republic is one of the most famous allegories in which he has created. This simile touches base on a number of philosophical ideas which Plato developed over the progression of The Republic (Plato, G.M.A Grube, 1993), the most noticeable being the dividing line. The dividing line is the point between the world of ideas where we live and the world of the forms which is in the heavens. This allegory of the cave helps people understand the theory on which philosophy is based. It is also in this Book where the education of the guardians is outlined.

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.

Some of the key images Plato uses in his Allegory of the cave are the shadows coming from the fire the prisoners see as they are chained up. Every time a prisoner gets a glimpse of these shadows they can’t help but wonder what these shadows represent. Since the prisoners have been locked up away for most of their lives they really have know understanding what these shadows are. The shadows represent a world that only the prisoners know, its really the only world or way they have known. These shadows are never fully understood by the prisoners until one of the prisoners is set free. When the prisoner is freed from his imprisonment he is then shocked by what he witnesses. The prisoner sees a whole new world; this world was very shocking to him because he had no idea that this world had even existed in the first place. His imprisonment was the only way of life he had ever known. This knew world that the prisoner witnesses represent the deal world, or that the

In his allegory of the cave, Plato describes a scenario in which chained-up prisoners in a cave understand the reality of their world by observing the shadows on a cave wall. Unable to turn around, what seems to be reality are but cast shadows of puppets meant to deceive the prisoners. In the allegory, a prisoner is released from his chains and allowed to leave the cave. On his way out, he sees the fire, he sees the puppets, and then he sees the sun. Blinded by the sunlight, he could only stare down to view the shadows cast onto the floor. He gradually looks up to see the reflections of objects and people in the water and then the objects and people themselves. Angered and aware of reality, the freed prisoner begins to understand illusion

Plato expands this analogy in the allegory of the cave. The prisoners, who have lived in the cave since their childhood, “have their necks chained so that they cannot” turn their heads (Book VII, p. 1). From the beginning, their range of sight has been restricted, symbolizing their lack of knowledge. A fire, which resembles a lesser form of the sun, provides the cave with its main source of light, but instead of illuminating objects for the prisoners, the light serves as a backdrop for the shadows that marionette players display on the wall that the prisoners are allowed to see. These shadows understandably become realities for the prisoners, but their belief in pictures made from darkness further emphasizes their ignorance. When one of the prisoners is released, Plato describes his journey to enlightenment as a

All the prisoners know is what it is front of them; they have only seen the shadows and believe that is their true form. One of the prisoners is freed and is allowed to go outside for the first time, the sunlight hurts his eyes and everything looks disoriented. It takes him time to adjust and he starts to realize that there is an actual form to objects and that the shadow is just from a light shining on the object. The prisoner that was freed wanted to go back to cave and inform the other prisoners of the knowledge that he had

The Allegory of the Cave ties in with our world and society we live in today in many ways. One way would be that our world we live in values education a lot, more than a lot of things. In Plato: “Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners value education just as much as we do in the modern century. The prisoners praise one another if they guess the right shadow that is going to be displayed. If they guess the wrong shadow then they make fun of one another. As they sit there in the little cave for most of their life they do not really understand or know what education is but they do think the shadow game makes them smarter than the other prisoners. The prisoners think the shadows are real so they feel smart when they guess right as to what they are.