In society today most people live by what is call “social norms”, most people follow these norms and some choose not to follow them. Social norms are certain things in life that everyone does to be accepted by their co-workers, family, friends and even strangers. Some may feel that they have to live by these norms to get through life without being rejected and to be known as a “normal” person, hence the word “norm”. If a person were to stray from this path and just do what they felt like doing and do what made them happy as an individual, would they be criticized? In Plato’s Allegory of a Cave he describes an example of people conforming to the norm they were born into and then shows the results of a person emerging from this community …show more content…
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.
(Plato, & Parker, P. M., 2005) In my eyes Plato is describing how the society today is full of “unenlightenment” or ignorance and how we as a culture have been conformed to accepted ways and if we were to step away from these accustomed ways we would be casted out and ridiculed by our peers. According to Swapnil
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) .
Because of how we live, true reality is not obvious to most of us. However, we mistake what we see and hear for reality and truth. This is the basic premise for Plato抯 Allegory of the Cave, in which prisoners sit in a cave, chained down, watching images cast on the wall in front of them. They accept these views as reality and they are unable to grasp their overall situation: the cave and images are a ruse, a mere shadow show orchestrated for them by unseen men. At some point, a prisoner is set free and is forced to see the situation inside the cave. Initially, one does not want to give up the security of his or her familiar reality; the person has to be dragged past the fire and up the entranceway. This is a
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.
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.
Plato describes the vision of the real truth to be "aching" to the eyes of the prisoners, and how they would naturally be inclined to going back and viewing what they have always seen as a pleasant and painless acceptance of truth. This stage of thinking is noted as "belief." The comfort of the perceivement, and the fear of the unrecognized outside world would result in the prisoner being forced to climb the steep ascent of the cave and step outside into the bright sun.
Many, even perhaps all of the great religious texts we have read in this class have talked and discussed about the individual human ego. Although there is no absolutely solid evidence to prove that the Bhagavad-Gita and the Tao Te Ching have a relation that influenced each other, the core ideas of these two great works from two great ancient culture have surprising similarities. This discovery can be explained by the similarity of Chinese and Indian cultural background. However, in Plato’s works (the Five Dialogues and the Republic), we are able to find pieces about importance of our ego as well. Plato is one of the most important philosophers in western history. That brings us a question, why ego is such significant for both western and eastern philosophers and religious works?
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
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
Book VII of The Republic begins with Socrates’ “Allegory of the Cave.” The purpose of this allegory is to “make an image of our nature in its education and want of education” in other words, it illustrates Socrates’ model of education. In addition, the allegory corresponds perfectly to the analogy of the divided line. However, this Cave Analogy is also an applicable theme in modern times, for example, the movie, The Matrix, is loosely based off the Allegory.
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.
“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.
Plato's main goal in the Allegory of the Cave is to communicate the relevance and importance of the concept of intellectual perspective. His real agenda is to illustrate that most people are likely perceiving the world around them in a much more limited manner than they realize and that most of us are, to some degree, living our lives in the same circumstances as the prisoners he
to the cave to share his discovery with the other prisoned men. With dim eyesight and unable to distinguish shadows from the cave like he once could, he tried to explain to the others what he saw in the outside world. The men however, laughed at him and violently would resist any attempts to be free. Plato uses this analogy to describe what it is like for philosophers who
Since ancient times, people have looked up to the sun as an important part to their lives. For example, the Aztecs built, Teotihuacan, to be able to locate the exact point where the sun will reach its highest point. In the Egyptian civilization, Egyptians worshiped the sun as if it was a god. They named the god Horus, who they offered many sacrifices including human flesh to satisfy the god (Ahmed 2010). All of these civilizations were interactive with their environment, but imagine if one knew only of the reality they believed inside of a cave not experiencing events within the real world. In Plato’s, Allegory of the Cave, he describes the scenario of prisoners kept isolated in a cave left to come up with a reality that they comprehended with the images that they saw in front of them. This applies especially to politics, because people are left to decipher the context of the speeches many of the government leaders give, but seldom explain their motives. The policies proposed by presidential candidates obscure the reality of their motives within their campaigns by appealing to the majority 's’ opinion on specific issues that the government needs to address.