Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

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

     "The Allegory of the Cave," by Plato, explains that people experience emotional and intellectual revelations throughout different stages in their lives. This excerpt, from his dialogue The Republic, is a conversation between a philosopher and his pupil. The argument made by this philosopher has been interpreted thousands of times across the world. My own interpretation of this allegory is simple enough as Plato expresses his thoughts as separate stages. The stages, very much like life, are represented by growing realizations and newfound "pains." Therefore, each stage in "The Allegory of the Cave" reveals the relation between the growth of the mind and age.

Plato’s, “Allegory of the Cave” is an enlightening piece of literature that can help its readers understand complex parts of themselves. As one reads the allegory, they begin to question if they are like those in the cave, who are closed minded and base their beliefs solely on shadows. Some may realize an enlightening moment or event they have been through and try to share their knowledge with others like those who were let out of the cave in the allegory. Subsequent to reading the allegory, many will desire further enlightenment and will be more compelled to teach the truths they find to others. Plato challenges the minds of his readers through his allegory and forces them to question their own truths.

Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” represents how people identify and process everything around us. People rely on their immediate senses to understand and make their own opinion of reality. We have to touch, hear, or smell something in order to believe it. Our biggest misconception come from our sight. The posters and advertisements are real but it does not mean that what’s in them is real as well. The models on the advertisements we know are real but the photo may not be real. There are many tools they use to make the model look exactly how we think she should look. In reality it took a lot of work and effort to make that image seem real. Reality is we all have flaws, but flaws are not advertised. Perfection appears to be reality and the

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.

Have you ever felt so trapped in a small space you began to lose your mind? In Plato’s short story, “Allegory of the Cave,” the author uses allegory as a means to justify that the world is a reflection of more perfect and ideal forms. As the story begins, Plato’s teacher, Socrates, presents a world of alternate reality to Plato’s brother Glaucon by telling him to imagine a cave full of prisoner’s who have been chained their entire lives. The shadows, voices, and figures given to them by the puppeteers on the wall have constructed the only reality the prisoners have ever known. Those few interpretations lead the prisoners to believe the shadows are real. To the prisoners, they must be real because that is all they have ever seen, heard, or known. The cave is used as a means to open peoples eyes to the world we live in and to not blindly walk through life living by the rules of our puppeteers. As children we are the prisoners hidden in the cave or chained to the society defined by the media, government, educational systems, and many other constructs we do not even question. Our knowledge of reality, truth, and education will always be limited by our fears of puppeteers, new ideas, and radical perspectives unless we break free from what is holding us back. Just like the prisoners locked in their caves, we must seek enlightenment beyond the illusions instilled upon us.

In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” the allegory implies that for the people living in a world of the senses, there is this idea that they blindly follow and accept the things that they are acquainted with. The prisoners in the cave have been bound to chains and forced to face only one direction their entire lives and that is at the wall. Because they cannot turn around and see the world that is behind them they only have knowledge of the things they have been exposed to (the shadows) so they believe that the shadows are the truest things of the world. Once they are set free from the chains and can finally turn around they realize that there was more to their world than they had originally thought.

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Socrates asks Glaucon to imagine a cave where the prisoners have been since their childhood. One of the prisoners breaks free and leaves the cave. The sun blinds him because his eyes were accustomed to the dark. When the prisoner was removed from the cave and brought into the world, the disorientation would be even harsher; the light of the sun would be even more vivid than the fire. But as his eye adjust, the freed prisoner would be able to observe beyond the shadows. As he begins to comprehend his new world, and sees that the sun is the source of life and goes on an intellectual journey where he discovers beauty and meaning. He sees aspects and reflections in the water. I would believe after he spends some

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.

The “Allegory of the Cave” from the Republic by Plato is a philosophical conversation between Socrates and Glaucon that discusses prisoners in a cave who represent human beings in their daily and comfortable surroundings. In this dialogue Socrates displays a cave to Glaucon where prisoners are chained and have been for all their lives, the only activity they have is watching shadows on the wall formed by their one fire, until Socrates supposed one prisoner broke free to see the new world surrounding him. This freed man is stunned with confusion of all the new objects he observes, especially the sun which was amazing compared to the one fire he had seen all his life. However is will be able to grow accustomed to these drastic changes as said

In, The Allegory of the Cave, Plato makes a statement, not about the media, but about how the people are being controlled not by themselves but by someone or something else, “Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.” There was no media like there is today when Plato wrote this but it applies to today’s society as well. We all know that the media is controlling society, and that fact is the low wall that conceals the marionette which is visible in the image Plato creates in The Allegory of the Cave. Despite knowing that the media has control over us, we continue to let it control us instead of making our own choices, and in the ideal society, this would not happen. People would not rely on twitter, and Facebook to communicate with everyone, and there would be no TMZ or paparazzi.

The “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato represents the differences in the way we perceive reality and what we believe is real. In his story, Plato starts by saying that in a cave, there are prisoners chained down and are forced to look at a wall. The prisoners are unable to turn their heads to see what is going on behind them and are completely bound to the floor. Behind the prisoners, puppeteers hide and cast shadows on the wall in line with the prisoners’ sight, thus giving the prisoners their only sense of reality. What happens in the passage is not told from the prisoners’ point of view but is actually a conversation held between Socrates and Glaucon (Plato’s brother).

“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 Cave begins by explaining the conditions of the people inside the cave. The people inside sit side by side. Their hands and legs are chained to the ground. They face a wall in the cave. The cave is illuminated by a fire behind the people. On the wall, there are projections of shadows created by the fire and objects that passes by fire. The prisoners don't know this, of course, because they are bound so tight that they can't turn their heads. There are people that are carrying objects to create the shadows. Not everyone is bound. The shadows represent the reality of which the prisoners see. They are chained down so they are compelled to see and accept whatever they see as true. The cave represents the society in which we live in. The people manipulating the shadows are the leaders of our society.