Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave" Modern Comparison

People are very ignorant towards homeless people, just how the prisoners are in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to the outside world. Society seems to view the homeless as nasty, dirty people who are drug addicts when in reality a lot of them are just in very unfortunate situations that they can't get themselves out of. Just like the rich may view the poor and the educated may view the uneducated, people are quick to judge things that they are ignorant of. I know this based on first hand knowledge and experience about how it to be

The Allegory of the Cave, also know as The Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave or Parable of the Cave is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The Republic “ as a theory concerning the perceptions of human kind and compares the effects of education to the lack of education on our observations. The passage is written as dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his teacher Socrates.

In the ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, Plato uses a philosophical situation to help us as the reader to examine our perception of life by what is around us. Plato uses such an abstract situation to show that we can mistake the information that we gain due to our position in a situation for truth.

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.

As he talks about the prisoners, he claims that - were they not released and able to go into the outside light - they “would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects” (Plato). He describes their original life in the cave as being primitive and conjecture in nature. Once released from their chains, though, the prisoner must make his way past the fire and into the outside world because for Plato, “the entire ascent out of the cave, is a story of progress toward understanding values”

Both Philosophers Aristotle and Plato have very different perspectives according to their metaphysics. Plato explains his metaphysics through the story of the allegory of the cave which conveys his story of the Divided Line, while on the other hand Aristotle explains his metaphysics through his idea of actuality versus potentiality which leds him to the discussion of substance. Plato explains his metaphysics in a sense where he mainly discusses the idea of knowledge and truth through ideas, while Aristotle on the other hand explains his metaphysics in a real life sense offering the stronger system for being able to break down his belief in great detail applying it to the real world, which can stem out to being applied to everything.

The second stage of the Allegory of the Cave consists of the process leading up to enlightenment. Plato represents the difficulties of leaving a comfortable reality where you are content with your own ideas by comparing it to the harshness of a flickering flame. The bright light of the fire that you are newly being exposed to after being held in the dark for so long can be painful, and hard to cope with or understand. The journey from ignorance to a better understanding can be confusing. As humans, we naturally don’t want to be forced to question our own ideas and the things we know to be true, but it is this uncomfortable, driving force that can lead us out of our own contentment and onto the path of better understanding. Plato so eloquently describes this challenging journey by comparing it to that of a prisoner being forced to visually take in all of this new information that he had not previously been exposed to. It takes a great deal of strength to be able to challenge the world around you and develop your own ideas, rather than taking everything around you in on a surface value.

Plato who was a Greek philosopher was born around the year 428 BCE, where he was known for opening an academy. The academy was considered the first university in the western world. In “The Allegory of the Cave”, three prisoners were tied up and could only see the shadows that reflected from the wall. They have been living in the same cave as prisoner for practically there whole life. The shad`ows represent things that are believed to be true. One prisoner got free and experienced the reality of the world but the other prisoners just laugh at him when he comes back. Plato is telling people In “The Allegory of the Cave”, the rhetorical appeal is a metaphor of the sun and symbolism.

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

The final point being touched on is also another similarity between Plato’s Allegory and The Truman Show just like the plot, but this similarity is between both characters. It has already been discussed how Truman and the prisoner figured out the truth in the ending and how the setting in each of the works was different, but now the similarities in each of the characters alone will be talked about. “Their heads are held by the chains s that they must sit facing the back wall of the cave and cannot turn their heads to look up through the entrance behind them” (Stickney 11). This quote from Plato’s Allegory shows the mental effect on the prisoner and how he was trapped since childhood and the toll that it would have taken on him, and not only that but how his freedom was taken from him by the capturers who keep him chained in the cave and don’t let him go outside of it. An example about character from The Truman Show is when Truman lost all his rights of freedom the minuet he was born because Christop planned Truman’s entire future for him in a way by enclosing him in that dome on his set for his hit television series. This example proves that Truman had no choice he did not choose to make a show out of his life his freedom in a sense was stripped from him by keeping him in that fake world of illusion which

To start off, the quote addresses the underlying ignorance that is evident in both Plato’s and Weir’s works. Truman was living his entire life inside a metaphorical bubble. In many instances throughout the movie, he ignored any suspicious act that threatened to obscure and interfere with his concept of reality. For example, as Truman was walking out of his house, he noticed a studio light that suddenly fell from the “sky” just as he was about to get in his car. Even though he questioned it at first, Truman did not really bother investigating or looking into it, perhaps because he was subconsciously afraid of what he would find. He chooses not to give the random incident any importance and gets in his car, which further proves his underlying ignorance and reluctance to accept things that may not conform to the norm. Shortly after, the producers of the show decide to make an excuse for the set malfunction, and it is soon forgotten. Additionally, when Sylvia tells him upfront that his entire life is a lie, he chooses to ignore it, until he himself starts to question his life. In the same way, in Plato’s allegory of the

An initial perception of Plato's parable "Allegory of the Cave" can be somewhat vague or ambiguous which can make the reading experience a little intimidating at first. To receive a comprehensive awareness of its content, an analytical approach is recommended. The narrator is Socrates, Plato's mentor. It appears that Plato has been greatly intrigued by his teacher. Plato recorded this dialogue between Socrates, his teacher and Glaucon, his older brother.

This life in the cave is the only life the prisoners have ever known (Republic 463). After Glaucon comments how strange this image is, Socrates replies, “They are like us. I mean, in the first place, do you think these prisoners have ever seen anything of themselves and one another besides the shadows that the fire casts on the wall of the cave in front of them?” (464). Down the page, Socrates then continues by saying, “All in all, then, what the prisoners would take for true reality is nothing other than the shadows of those of those” (464), in which Glaucon replies, “That’s entirely inevitable” (464). Plato’s purpose for repeatedly reiterating that the cave is the only truth the prisoners know is to demonstrate that humans believe what they know as truth is the only and best truth. However, as Plato goes on to display in the rest of the allegory, there is more knowledge for people to learn, they just have to break out of their “cave,” which is their own

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.”

Question 1 Describe the movement of the person in Plato’s allegory of the cave. Be very specific about the various stages in this movement, and then please explain how this allegory relates to at least two intellectual standards. Answer 1) The Allegory of the Cave implies that if we rely on our perceptions to know the truth about existence then we will know very little about it. The sense are untrustworthy and their views imperfect because views are only how we as individuals view things and not how they truly are.