Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

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.

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.

Is it possible to rip off the shackles that are bound to you? In Plato’s “The Allegory of The Cave” there are prisoners that are shackled to the ground, and one manages to get freed by a mysterious figure. Why did this figure free this one person and not the rest? Could this figure be something else other than human? Are the Prisoners actually tied down? So many questions could be rung from this story, guess we’ll have to find out.

Ideas from the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy states that major questions philosophers ask themselves is what is reality, knowledge or the meaning of life. Topics they tend to take on figuratively. Explaining existence as a journey or any other sort of opportunity. The philosopher plato explains this idea in the allegory of the cave and somewhat of the simile of the divided line. This topic of life and knowledge can also be analyzed in the movie Hilary and Jackie.

Part I The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's interpretation of individuals that are illiterate, or blindly following what the majority of others believe to be true. Every element in the cave represents the course to enlightenment beginning with the path that symbolizes the path to understanding. Plato regards it as conviction that those who inform themselves on matters of the mind and matters of the physical world can elevate themselves to freedom (Lawhead, 2009) .The shadows that are objects that appear to the prisoners are merely flickers of what the prisoners interpret them to be, this characterizing an individuals limited view of the world. First comes imagination and then what our limited thought or belief.

After reading Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” we can come to the conclusion that all that in today’s society is consider reality is just shadows. The true values of humanity have been forgotten, all we have are shadows. We think that true happiness is based on having material things. The shadows that we see today are: social media, wealth, greed, power. Since we are born we are surrounded by ideas of what is expected of us. As Plato’s Allegory observed, “Prisoners who have been chained since childhood” (Plato, pars. 1-2). Our children are raised with pictures of photo-shopped models, billboards of the latest car model, commercials of the season trends, and parents who only care about the material things. We are living in a society where

When most people hear the word utopia, their minds begin to form these outlandish and, more often than not, unobtainable confounds for a society in which they wished they lived in. Once their minds come back to reality they realize that their idea of a perfect society could never happen in real life seeing as the closest thing to a real life utopia would arguably be the country of Switzerland. They’re a neutral country therefore they don’t get invaded and they never engage in war due to the lack of an army. It’s a peaceful place, with those awesome Swiss army knives, and they make great chocolate, what more could one ask for? On a more serious note, a perfect society, a Utopia, would be much more than great chocolate, cool gadgets, and no

The moist air of the cave hovers in a homeostatic manner around the mans conditioned skin. He sits, staring at the flat, cold surface of rock in front of him. Nothing that he sees surprises him. He just stares blankly at the recurrent shadows dancing in a dull glow. He is motionlessly caught in a state of a calm, content trance.

After reading, The Allegory of the Cave, it discussed how the people in the cave are chained up. Socrates says that the people are “us” and the cave is our world. These people are chained up, which restricts them from expanding their knowledge and understanding Goodness. This made me think about our world and what the Goodness is in our world. So, what is it that is in our cave that is restricting us from understanding Goodness?

The film shows the similarities between the characters being prisoners in their own

Once one of the prisoner’s is released, he is forced to look at the fire and the objects that once made up his perceived reality, and realizes that the new images he is made to acknowledge are now the accepted forms of reality.

In the story, "Plato's Allegory of the Cave", Plato discusses about the nature of reality. Plato depicts a conversation between his mentor, Socrates and his student, Glaucon, about a scenario of prisoners chained inside the cave since childhood. While, these prisoners are confined inside, objects are placed in front of the flames mimicked by puppeteers. This is the only thing that the prisoners experiences which mentally clouds with their only perception of reality. Further on, one of the prisoners is forcibly taken outside which makes the prisoner feel severe novelty upon things never before seen. Later, when this prisoner receives knowledge gathered outside the cave. He wishes to return back and mentioned what he seen to the others. Even

The significance of studying and discussing Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave helps the reader to understand that what Plato is saying in the chapter happens in the society today. Also, it helps us as readers to understand the purpose of this writing piece. The purpose of writing this piece is to show the roles the people can take in the real word. Those roles could be a prisoner, a puppet master, or a philosopher. Plato also wanted to show that what people see from their eyes is not always true. It can deceive them. Plato uses symbolism to prove this point.

The Allegory of the Cave is an allegory or metaphor used by Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 B.C.). Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave to represent the ascent from opinion to knowledge (Kranak, 2002) and ultimately enlightenment. For Plato, opinion was belief, hearsay, imagination and sense experience, for example, experiences that involve sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feelings. Plato proposed that this type of empirical thinking was unreliable and fallacious (Dennick, 2008). In comparison, knowledge is justified true belief, belief or opinion that needs to be justified with evidence and logical reasoning (Daniel, 2003).