The Allegory Of The Cave: The Republic

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.

Additionally escaping from the cave of ignorance and error is the central message of the allegory. Yet the metaphorical aspects of the parable are less comprehensible and like all narratives are subject to interpretation. Yet despite this upon examining the symbolism from the perspective of Platonic philosophy it is can be speculated that the cave is the day to day world of perceptual experience. While the other features of the allegory such as the journey out of the cave and seeing the sun being respectively representing insight and enlightenment into the true nature of reality.

The Allegory of the Cave is a passage contained in Book VII: The Republic written by Plato. The passage describes a group of prisoners who are held captive inside of an enormous and cavernous cave. The prisoners sit facing a wall that reflects sunlight, allowing them to observe the shadows cast against the wall by the events going on outside of the cave. The shadows cast against the wall are the only sensory stimulus that the prisoners receive and as a result, they perceive the shadows as reality. Plato continues to describe a single prisoner who is set free from his chains and released into the world. After being released, the prisoner is able to absorb and rejoice in the beauty of the world and experience all the sights, sounds, and tastes

The cave allegory also proves that the role of education is not to teach in the sense of feeding people information they do not have, but rather to shed light on things they already know. Education "isn't the craft of putting sight into the soul. Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn't turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it properly." (2)

The Allegory of the Cave tells of three people living trapped in a cave, never being able to see what goes on outside of the darkness. They see the shadows of some things but otherwise, they only ever keep staring at the cave wall. One of the three people gets free and goes outside for the first time ever. That person discovers new things they never knew or thought of before and they get a new aspect of life. The other two people don't want to go outside and are ignorant to what can be discovered. This story, all in all, is saying that people in life are always discovering new things, and when they do, they then have a deeper mindset of many things in life and more complicated thoughts about them. But this can only be possible if people can

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

The shadows represent people who accept the evidence through experience and disregard logical reasonings. We can see this directly through the prisoners believing the shadows are the truth due to their only prior knowledge being limited to life inside the cave. Whereas the game mentioned in the book symbolizes how the wisdom reiterated by the person whose inception of the truth is disoriented by the falsities. However, they continued to be are praised for empirical knowledge they present. An example of this would be when prisoner returns to the cave and present their advanced evidence of reality to the others.

Plato's allegory of the cave is an allegory (a story with a deeper meaning) about first discovering philosophy and its teachings, the allegory starts of as prisoners at birth have been forced to watching shadows puppets projected on walls of a cave from a fire; the prisoner, as Plato says is every person to have existed or to exist at this moment in time. As the prisoners watch the shadows, they're perception of reality are the shadows and they live out their lives as normal until one of the prisoners is released, the light from the fire hurts their eyes, they are exposed to things that they can't understand, slowly they come to terms that the shadows are not reality, it's actually the objects; when the official allegory says "... While his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous ?... " it's where Plato explains that where the prisoner is exposed to the teachings philosophy and where they discover what is reality actually is. The prisoner becomes curious, so they discover more of the world and what reality is, their perception of reality becomes stronger, their curiosity wants the other prisoners to see what they see, as the

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

Humankind is filled with individuals testing each other and competing with one another to be the greatest, ignoring the reality of life. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato justifies this by displaying a parable that serves as a metaphor for life. This parable teaches the reader how people wish to remain in their comfort zones and disregard the truth. It portrays the struggle of facing different realities that alter the illusion of one's life. In the story, he described a group of prisoners chained inside a dark cave; their only source of light comes from a burning fire that is used to create shadows. These shadows display images that the prisoners each interpret as the reality; however, once one is released and is struck by the light, he

At first they are blinded by the sun, but when their eyes adapt they slowly realize the shadows within the cave were only part of a much bigger image. Therefore, insinuating we metaphorically live in a cave of illusions and shadows merely mimic what the form really is. The cave could also be considered a critique on the democracy of Athens. Ultimately, he comes to

The prisoner’s legs and neck are in chains and as a result, they can only see what is immediately in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a fire. When people pass by the fire with various objects, shadows project onto the wall in front of the prisoners. As the prisoners can only ever see the shadows projected on the wall, they believe these shadows to be reality. Plato uses the cave to symbolise the visible world.

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.

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).

An allegory is a kind of story in which writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story. One of the most important allegories ever to be gifted to humankind is Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is one of the most potent and pregnant of allegories that describe human condition in both its fallen and risen states. The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. It is also known as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave. It is written as a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon at the beginning of Book VII of The Republic.