The Critique Of Allegory In Plato's The Republic

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).

"Unless," I said, "the philosophers rule as kings or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize, and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place, while the many natures now making their way to either apart from the other are by necessity excluded, there is no rest from ills for the cities, my dear Glaucon, nor I think for human kind, nor will the regime we have now described in speech ever come forth from nature, insofar as possible, and see the light of the sun."(THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO By Allan B- 473d - 473e)

The Allegory of the Cave means that, people do not see things as they really are. That mankind assumes concepts but they do not have the full picture; One reason is because we only have five senses. For example, in Allegory of the Cave, Socrates explains that the chained men see the shadows and assume that they are being cast from the real item. However the shadows did not come from the real things they were just illusions and models. It also means that as humans, we tend to believe what is in front of us and not dig deeper to make sure we are correct.

Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.

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 to envision a group of prisoners who have been affixed in an underground cave. Their hands, feet, and necks are tied with the constraint that they can't move. What they believe to be the truth is just a shadow depicted on the wall of the cave. “Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along with puppets of various animals, plants, and other things moved along” (Allegory of the Cave). These obscurities are the only objects the prisoners have known of during their lives, so they do not question them which leaves them in a blissful ignorance of the world around them. These prisoners are living in their own reality and are unaware of the actual reality that is ongoing in the background. The idea of “ignorance is bliss” is presented in Allegory of the Cave because the prisoners are living a life of ignorance. They live in a superficial world which they are perfectly content with. As this ignorance is presented, Plato shapes the prisoners to blissfully live in their surroundings. If one of the prisoners were suddenly released from the chains that hold his/her in his/her current state of ignorance, the movement would be uncomfortable, even agonizing. The prisoners would be released from their normal habitat. Plato revealed symbolism about the unknown in his work Allegory of the Cave. The shadows on the wall symbolize the

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" presents a vision of humans as slaves chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of things on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows are the only "reality" the slaves know. Plato argues that there is a basic flaw in how we humans mistake our limited perceptions as reality, truth and goodness. The allegory reveals how that flaw affects our education, our spirituality and our politics.

In its most simple and basic terms, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” creates an illustration of prisoners who are being kept in a cave; their crimes are never mentioned, but their punishments are beautifully described. Each prisoner, according to Plato, is kept within a cave and is chained in such a way that not only do they face the cave wall, but they are also unable to turn their heads, making the cave wall the only thing they see. Behind them and higher up in the cave is a fire. By utilizing the fire, there are “men carrying past the wall

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

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

To begin with, "The Allegory of the Cave" is a parable written by the Greek Philosopher Plato. This theory essentially explains how people are blinded by a number of factors such as morals, beliefs and rules that are accepted without question. These blinded people tend to only see the surface of the situations surrounding them, and do not care to look deeper. They are known in "The Allegory of the Cave" as the prisoners. They are the members of society, which do not tend to change and/or are close-minded. On the contrary, there is always someone in each social system who is different. Someone who either questions or does not always accept the norm. According to "The Allegory of the Cave", this person is the enlightened one. The enlightened one constantly tries to help others or "free" them in order to let them see the world the way that they do. The final aspect to this parable is the cave. The cave represents

There are several themes represented in the allegory of the cave, one of the first themes you come across while reading the Allegory of the Cave is ignorance. The chains binding them to the cave could merely be interpreted as a metaphor for ignorance, as if they wanted to fulfil enlightenment, all they would have to do is ask questions and seek the truth; however they all decide to stay put in the cave and accept the reality presented to them. The reason for this ignorance is because the cave is steep and rigid with sharp rocks; it’s a tricky journey throughout. The prisoners are deep in the cave and struggle to see the

In chapter 7 of Plato's book The Republic, Socrates describes the importance and benefits of education and philosophy. He makes specific points and examples to show that without growing humanity would suffer. Also, Socrates also shows how one man learning can change a whole group of people. Socrates proves that education opens the eyes of many and he does that by using the allegory of the cave. Socrates describes the allegory of the cave by describing a story about a group of prisoners that have lived in a dark cave their whole lives.

In Plato’s allegory, a group of men are held as prisoners in an underground chamber. In the chamber there is no light nor happiness. The men are only allowed to look one way and that is forward. For years, their scenery has been a dark wall with shadows from the objects or people that are behind them. They have never experienced the beauty of nature or the warmth of the sun’s rays. What crime have these men committed that forced them to face such a terrible fate? They are used to being in the dark, that when one man is set free he is amazed by what he sees outside of the chamber. The bright light blinds him and once he faces reality, it slaps him right across the face. He feels sorry for the men in the chamber. He feels sorry that they cannot

The allegory of the cave in the beginning of the book seven is a discussion between Socrates and Plato’s half-brother Glaucon. In the story, Plato speaks of prisoners chained in a cave looking straight ahead at the wall with it facing in only one direction. Behind the prisoners remains a fire creating shadows of what people want to show to them. One could imagine that it is a little spectacle for the prisoners to admire given their isolation. Supposedly, the play of shadows was all that they know of their world. Interpreting this story, readers can infer the population consisted of prisoners and the cave was the society.