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The Allegory Of The Cave

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By the time The Republic was written the term had a new meaning. Instead of the method previously described, it was now used to describe what something is. “The Republic stresses that true dialectic is performed by thinking solely of the abstract and nonsensible realm of forms; it requires that reason secure an unhypothetical first principle (the Good) and then derive other results in light of it” (Meinwald). In later dialogues like Parmenides, dialectic is used to understand forms in the proper manner. Although The Allegory of the Cave was mentioned in relation to the Republic, Plato also used it to describe “the divided line” and being and becoming. In describing and explaining the Divided Line, Plato creates an analogy or allegory to describe his Theory of Forms and his ideals of Being and Becoming (Allegory of the Cave). To do so he created his famous Allegory of the Cave. It begins in a dark cave in which prisoners have been bound to their entire lives. Being bound to this cave, they have been subjected to shadows cast behind a wall, which are being manipulated by other people. They believe that these shadows are real because this is all they know. This part of the allegory is meant to symbolize Plato’s idea of illusions and of shadows, the lowest form of reality that exists in the Divided Line (Allegory of the Cave).
Next, a prisoner is released and allowed to witness and understand what is actually happening in the real world. The world he has come to understand

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