Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

In Book VII of Plato’s The Republic, the allegory of the cave paints a picture of ordinary people imprisoned in a cave. They are facing away

Plato’s allegory of the cave, located in Book VII of The Republic is one of the most famous allegories in which he has created. This simile touches base on a number of philosophical ideas which Plato developed over the progression of The Republic (Plato, G.M.A Grube, 1993), the most noticeable being the dividing line. The dividing line is the point between the world of ideas where we live and the world of the forms which is in the heavens. This allegory of the cave helps people understand the theory on which philosophy is based. It is also in this Book where the education of the guardians is outlined.

The whole point of the allegory is to represent to journey to enlightenment. The prisoners represent either the unenlightened that have not had enough experience to gain great wisdom or the uneducated that have not learned enough to gain great intelligence. And being thrown out of the cave into the outside world represents the process of becoming enlightened. Once enlightened they would of course not want to leave and to make them go back into the Cave would be cruel, as is noted by Glaucon. But as is explained they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not” (873). Plato claims that these enlightened have a moral responsibility to bring their wisdom to the common people in order to help them learn more so everyone can benefit from the knowledge of an individual. This is certainly an agreeable prospect and one that is not seen enough in the real world. Once

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.

Coming to college, I was eager to formally learn more about philosophy. As we began to study works of Plato, I found the Allegory of the Cave to be especially interesting. The thought of this specific concept lingered with me for a while as I had little time to stop and think about it. One night however, I could do some deep thinking and began unlocking a great door whose key was given to me by Plato’s allegory.

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) .

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.

I feel what Plato in is describing in " The Allegory of the Cave" is how mankind tend to live within our own narrow view of life,which he represents as the cave. The shadows within the cave represent our distorted views of reality and symbolic of the intellectual standard of clarity, because the distorted view of events clouds our perception of events as they occur. The prisoners chained within the cave represent each of us as we go through and face the challenges of life. Plato, describes chains that restrict their movements which represent the self imposed restrictions that each of us place upon ourselves that create narrow views of perception on the events of our life as they occur daily and are symbolic of the intellectual standard

In the story, the allegory of the cave, Plato expresses human life thru 3 phases of which a person goes through, from a philosophy stand point. He starts out in part one introducing the cave or the habitat of which a person is used to being at. Part two describes how people rise from the darkness and realizes the circumstances that they face, as Plato describes it as freedom. Part three goes into depth about how returning after being freed from the cave causes people to envy you without them understanding why things happened.

The allegory of the cave gives a description of Plato’s theory of forms (being and becoming) which includes “the divided line” and “the simile of the sun”. Plato’s allegory talks about prisoners that have been kept in a cave since childhood. Throughout their entire life they have been restricted from natural light, while chained to a wall without being able to move or look around them. Since the prisoners have been in this state for so long, they know nothing else. We can see hear that Plato refers to individuals that lack knowledge due to the surroundings they have lived in their entire life, and as a result they are ignorant to anything else. Therefore, as prisoners they have been trapped into living a life restricted from knowledge.

The prisoners represent the lowest stage which is imagination. The next scene is the prisoner is being freed, he forced to look at the fire to see that the statues are not real people. I could not imagine if this was true, because he was probably so in awe of everything. After seeing the fire his eyes are hurting, he realizes that the statues are real, also during this he realizes that there is a world bigger and grander then the cave itself. The stage he is in now is

In the story The Allegory of the Cave, Plato describes the perception of reality. He explains how to interpret ideas or objects in different perspectives. The story he tells about the cave could have influenced different modern day ideas. Some ideal examples might include religion, abuse, and imprisonment. Plato’s cave theory applies to all of these ideas and can show many different perspectives.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is just one small part of his work The Republic. In this piece, in particular his use of allegory and dialogue become the two main rhetorical devices he uses to

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.

The Allegory of the Cave is one of Greek philosopher Plato’s most known pieces that he has ever written. It is an allegory, where humans are characterised, and been portrayed as being imprisoned by their bodies and what they perceive is only by sight. In the allegory of the cave Plato wanted to show how true reality is not always what it seems. A group of prisoners were chained up in a cave since their childhood; each prisoner was chained to each other by their necks, and ankles. They are not able to move, and when they did it caused pain, so they were forced to sit and stare, at a blank wall while they were in the cave. Behind the prisoners there was a fire however the prisoners could not see the fire but between the prisoners and the fire