Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Perceptions of Reality Essay

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.

In the Allegory of the Cave there are chained prisoners in cave who can only stare at the cave wall in front of them. At the back there is a long entrance with a staircase the width of the cave and a fire burning in the distance. They see only shadows projected in front of them from a raised platform and hear an echo that they attribute to what they observe. They talk about and name the shadows of objects they see before them. To them the truth are the shadows. Then one day one of the prisoners is released. He is told that what he saw before was an illusion. Once he is outside it takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the sun. First he observed the shadows of thing then their reflection and finally the actual object. Remembering his previous state he goes back to the cave and tries to explain that everything is an illusion but they laugh at him and think he’s crazy. They believe it best not to ascend and they choose to remain as they are. The cave represented opinion. The shadows that are cast on to the wall represented physical objects. The prisoners represented the common people (Welles).

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 "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.

“Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light, or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye…” (Plato). In this quote from Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” an instance in which a person comes face to face with something that confounds them, it can be due to two factors. First, it could be that they are knowledgeable and are paying attention and go to seeing ignorance. Or it could be that they are not knowledgeable and are faced with veracity. A situation such as this takes place in Plato’s

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

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.

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

In the story, “Allegory of the cave,” by Plato, it explains how there were human beings living in a cave chained up facing the wall since they were children. As they grew older all they were able to see were the shadows of people crossing animals, tools, statues etc. on a bridge behind them. Since they could not turn their heads to look, their mind couldn't wrap around what they were really looking at. As if they weren't looking into reality. They had no knowledge of the outside world what so ever. This passage focuses more on justice, truth, and beauty. When a prisoner is released into the real world, the concept of reality is disorienting. The way we can reflect off this in the new world and society today, is the fact that most people are

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.

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

“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.

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.