Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" - Analysis and Summary

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) .

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is also termed as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave. It was used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our nature in its education and want of education". It comprises of a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon. Socrates gives a description of a group of people who spent their lifetime facing a blank wall chained to the wall of a cave. These people saw and tried to assign forms of the shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them. These shadows as put by Socrates, are what the prisoners can view close to reality (Law 2003). He further compares a philosopher to the prisoner who is freed from the cave and comprehends that he can envision the true form of reality instead of the shadows which the prisoners saw in the cave and these shadows do not depict reality at all.

An allegory is a kind of story in which writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story. One of the most important allegories ever to be gifted to humankind is Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is one of the most potent and pregnant of allegories that describe human condition in both its fallen and risen states. The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. It is also known as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave. It is written as a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon at the beginning of Book VII of The Republic.

Plato describes the state of mind and state of living of the prisoners. He also notes that everyone is in a cave of darkness surrounding knowledge at some point or another. Plato’s

The one prisoner finally escaping the cave to the outside light shows symbolism as a higher level of philosophy. Returning to the cave was the choice of the prisoner, he felt compelled to spread his new knowledge. Plato’s uses him to represent breaking free from the normal mindset shared. Plato’s argument stands since the cave represents lack of expanding on common knowledge. Even after the prisoner returns to express his findings to others, individuals with philosophies different than the norm is dismissed because of their level above previous things thought of as true.

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.

Though the escapee has seen the outside world and gained experience the others do not have; when the prisoner returns to the cave, the others do not believe him. The escaped prisoner is said to be a metaphoric character for a wise man or philosopher, and the prisoners are supposedly metaphoric for people in society who only see what they want too. Plato creates a metaphor that a man has wisdom and knowledge of reality, but others do not want to believe in reality, but in their own idea of what is

When the prisoner begins his journey, he is reluctant, like Montag. “And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.” This shows that like Montag, the prisoner has ideas of what he will encounter. As the Allegory continues, the prisoner thinks back on his past life, in the dreary cave, chained up and begins to pity those he left behind. “And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would.” Both characters realize it is a privilege to be in the situations they are in, even if they are alone. They're grateful to know rather than be stuck in their past, ignorant ways, like those stuck in the city and the cave. In both texts, the sun is a cause of sudden realization. In the Allegory of the Cave, the prisoner realizes there is more to the world than the shackles and the shadows he was accustomed to, while Montag realizes that time continues with or without you. Both realizations are vital to the path of enlightenment both characters

In his Allegory Plato shows us how a man ascends from the darkness of a cave to the light of the outside world. In this ascent Plato’s man passes through four distinct stages of cognition: from imagination, to belief, understanding, and finally knowledge.

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is a story that conveys his theory of how we come to know, or how we attain true knowledge. It is also an introduction into his metaphysical and ethical system. In short, it is a symbolic explanation of his "Theory of the Forms" (or eidos).

The man ran up the hill towards the light and the end of the cave where he was temporarily blinded because he was used to the darkness inside of the cave. Of course this is all very confusing to him and maybe even angers him because he does not understand what he is seeing. Eventually this man will gain knowledge of the world and everything in it, from the shadows of the objects he saw on the wall of the cave all the way up to how the sun helps the earth. He will see that was he was made to see and understand was not reality but just was he was made to believe. This freed man now pities the other prisoners that are still inside the cave because he realizes how wrong they were about everything they know. Plato describes how if the freed prisoner were to go back to the cave and tell the others what he has seen that they would criticize him, laugh at him and tell him he would have been better off if he had never escaped. They even go as far to say that if another person were to be released that they should be caught and killed so as to not follow the same fate as the released prisoner.

As Socrates is describing the cave and the situation, he stresses the point that the prisoners are completely oblivious as to what is reality as they would know nothing but the shadows casted by items held by the puppeteers, and believe this to be their own reality. This is important to the story as it shows that what we believe is real from the moment we are born is completely wrong based on our own flawed interpretations of reality. The point so far is that it is not what we can see but what we can’t see is what grasps our minds and Plato describes this thinking as “imagination.”

Socrates’s anecdote of the cave presents a ghastly image: people who “are in it from childhood with their legs and necks in bonds so that they are fixed, seeing only in front of them, unable because of the bond to turn their heads all the way around” (193). Also inside the cave is a “fire burning” which allows certain objects (out of sight and controlled by others) to project shadows (193). Consequently, the prisoners believe that the shadows are the most real things. When a prisoner is released, he experiences pain due to the light of the fire. In time, he recognizes the truth and becomes accustomed to it. He is then “dragged out into the light of the sun” (194). After a few moments, he tolerates its rays. Most importantly though, he grasps “the sun itself” (195). Finally, the escapee is not content with keeping this

The final phase Socrates says the prisoner will go through will be his studying of the heavens by this point he believes the prisoner will be able to himself come up with conclusions regard the sun as “the source of the seasons and the years” (516c) and simply the cause for all he now sees and all he once saw. According to Socrates the prisoner will eventually recall the lifestyle and the people he left behind and began to feel a sense of pity for them but will cherish experience he has received on the surface. He says that if the prisoner were to ever return to the cave he would face the pain of having to readjust to the light in the cave and the ridicule of the prisoner who will see him as someone who has lost sight of the truth instead of the newly enlightened soul he is.