Socrates Essay

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).

In Plato's “The Cave” shows us a group of prisoners chained to face a wall. A fire behind them casts shadows on the wall their facing of a variety of different things however they can not see what they truly are. The prisoners only reality is the shadows and the sound they associate with these shadows. They truly have no understanding of what happening other than what they see on the wall and what they hear. This distorted view of the world

I have use images to explain the cave, as well as the relationship of the realm of true forms. This writing is construct a bridge between the worlds of darkness and of enlightenment. I have entered back into the cave.

The "Allegory of the Cave" is Plato's attempt to explain the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Starting with the image of men in fetters that limit their movement and force them to look only ahead, this is the idea that all men and women are bound by the limits of their ignorance. Men and women are restricted by the limits of the education of their parents and the small amounts that can be culled from their environment. Images and shadows are representations of those things surrounding us that we see but do not understand because of our limited knowledge. As we obtain the ability to see things more clearly in the cave that is our ignorance, we start to then

Also, in Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, shadows are the biggest symbol. The shadows represent what we perceive as the truth. As humans, we believe that we understand what we are looking at but we really just perceive shadows of the true forms of the things that make up the world. Plato is saying that, unless we become educated, we human beings are like the prisoners in the cave. We think that we understand the world around us.

The “Myth of the Cave” is how we are blinded to everything around us and need to truly open our eyes to see what our world is like.

There are times in every mans life where our actions and beliefs collide—these collisions are known as contradictions. There are endless instances in which we are so determined to make a point that we resort to using absurd overstatements, demeaning language, and false accusations in our arguments. This tendency to contradict ourselves often questions our character and morals. Similarly, in The Trial of Socrates (Plato’s Apology), Meletus’ fallacies in reason and his eventual mistake of contradicting himself will clear the accusations placed on Socrates. In this paper, I will argue that Socrates is not guilty of corrupting the youth with the idea of not believing in the Gods but of teaching the youth to think for

In his allegory of the cave, Plato describes a scenario in which chained-up prisoners in a cave understand the reality of their world by observing the shadows on a cave wall. Unable to turn around, what seems to be reality are but cast shadows of puppets meant to deceive the prisoners. In the allegory, a prisoner is released from his chains and allowed to leave the cave. On his way out, he sees the fire, he sees the puppets, and then he sees the sun. Blinded by the sunlight, he could only stare down to view the shadows cast onto the floor. He gradually looks up to see the reflections of objects and people in the water and then the objects and people themselves. Angered and aware of reality, the freed prisoner begins to understand illusion

In order to do this, he goes about Athens questioning those he believes to be wiser than him, including politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Upon this questioning, he discovers that even those perceived as the wisest actually know far less than one would expect. Even the craftsmen, who have much practical wisdom in their respective fields, see their success as merely a tribute to their vast knowledge of many subjects. This, Socrates claims, is not true wisdom. Human wisdom can be described as the acknowledgement and acceptance that one does not know everything, nor is one capable of knowing everything. This, however, does not mean that people should sit idly by, never pursuing wisdom, for it is still vital to the attainment of a good life, which should be the ultimate goal of mankind.

In the allegory of the cave, the prisoners in the underground den are people who lack knowledge of the reality, because they can only reason with what they see. The shadows on the wall represent people’s ways of thinking. They are accustomed to these false images. Like Socrates said, “They see only their shadows or the shadows of others and it has been there since childhood.” This is why they cannot turn their heads into reality and is chain to false images.

Socrates spent his time questioning people about things like virtue, justice, piety and truth. The people Socrates questioned are the people that condemned him to death. Socrates was sentenced to death because people did not like him and they wanted to shut him up for good. There was not any real evidence against Socrates to prove the accusations against him. Socrates was condemned for three major reasons: he told important people exactly what he thought of them, he questioned ideas that had long been the norm, the youth copied his style of questioning for fun, making Athenians think Socrates was teaching the youth to be rebellious. But these reasons were not the charges against him, he was charged with being an atheist and

Before comparing Plato’s allegory to Derek Black’s story, it is very important to understand the allegory of the cave itself. The allegory beings with Socrates describing a cave to a man named Glaucon. This cave has a rugged ascent towards its mouth, which opens to the sun. Inside this cave, there are people who have been kept there as prisoners since childhood. These prisoners have their legs and arms chained, allowing them to only to see what’s directly in front of them: the backmost wall

The Myth of the Cave is a parable that examines and tries to explain how one forms their perception of the world surrounding them. There are three prisoners in the cave and they are bound to one of the cave falls so that they can only face forward. These men have been imprisoned in the cave since birth and they have never left the cave. Behind them there is a fire and a raised walkway and the fire projects the shadows of the objects that pedestrians are carrying. The prisoners believe that the shadows are reality because these are the only things they have experienced. However, one prisoner is able to escape and views the real world outside of the cave. At first he is blinded by the fire in the cave and realizes that the objects on

Socrates describes people in a cave since birth, bound so they can only see what is in front of them. There are shadows and sounds that can be observed but the source is unknown. Socrates says in 515c, “…such men would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things.” Their reality is limited by their experience. Then a prisoner is freed from the bonds and is forced to look at the fire and the statues that were used to cast the shadows on the walls. He is overwhelmed by the revelations and learns that the shadows were not the reality.

Plato’s Cave represents the education or lack of education in humans. The prisoners can only see shadows of objects pretending to be other objects. This depicts people that in real life have never been educated. Similar to how the prisoners object the escaped prisoner when he attempts to illustrate how false their lives are, many people when confronted with knowledge refute it.