The Parable Of The Cave

The Allegory of the Cave, also know as The Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave or Parable of the Cave is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The Republic “ as a theory concerning the perceptions of human kind and compares the effects of education to the lack of education on our observations. The passage is written as dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his teacher Socrates.

In the ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, Plato uses a philosophical situation to help us as the reader to examine our perception of life by what is around us. Plato uses such an abstract situation to show that we can mistake the information that we gain due to our position in a situation for truth.

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.

Has someone ever looked at you and immediately disregard you for you are just because of your ethnicity? Have you ever done it someone? Racism is a huge culture issue that we have not only in America, but in other parts of the world, but it does not matter the color of one’s. What really matters is the character they have withheld inside but are not given a chance to express because someone didn’t even bother to give them a chance. This is idea comes from the book written by Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave” where in the book Socrates speaks of man being in a dark cave all their lives not realizing the truth until once they reach the end of the cave to see that the light is the truth. The truth is the reality of life.

Having read the synopsis from The Matrix, the excerpt from Plato, The Republic, Book VII, 514A1-518D8 “The Allegory Of The Cave”, and the excerpt from Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641 “Meditation I Of The Things Of Which We May Doubt”, I am able to conclude that there are similarities as well as differences among these readings. Each question the state of reality in which we live. Is our reality a true state of reality or is it a state of mind we have allowed ourselves to exist in?

Materialistic items play a key role in the world today. People use these items, such as technological appliances, to fulfill their daily wants and needs. However, most people do not realize the negative effects of such a heavy reliance on material goods. In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato shares his idea that an overdependence on items can negatively affect ethical decisions. This idea is discussed in “The Veldt,” by Ray Bradbury, The Truman Show, by Peter Weir, and Daniel Key’s novel, Flowers for Algernon. Throughout all three stories, characters greatly rely on items and other people, leading them to make unethical decisions. In some cases, people are objectified as a result of being needed, desired, and treated unfairly. In “The Veldt,” The Truman Show, and Flowers for Algernon, an overreliance on items leads to a loss of focus on morals and what is ethically important.

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 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Plato describes, with a dialectic between Socrates and his student Glaucon, a world in which humans are chained to the wall of a dark cave, seeing only shadows but believing them to be reality. Glaucon at first abhors the idea of staying the cave, but through careful manipulation, Socrates convinces him to return to the cave. Socrates’ and therefore Plato's words are carefully measured and detached, to appeal to his intellectual audience of mainly philosophers to follow in Glaucon’s footsteps and return to the cave in order to govern how Plato sees most fit. Building up Glaucon’s confidence by reversing his role as a teacher and complimenting him, Socrates creates a sense of responsibility to a greater cause

The two stories in which we discuss today are The Cave and Eatting; both of them are related in character, tone, and setting, (for the most part).

In Plato’s, “Allegory of the Cave”, a key theory I found was the importance of gaining knowledge. Plato uses an “allegory to illustrate the dilemma facing the psyche in the ascent to knowledge of the imperishable and unchanging forms” (Fiero, 104). Based on my research of the Republic, the allegory can reveal multiple hidden messages. Plato describes in the Allegory, ordinary mortals who are chained within an underground chamber, which according to Fiero, represents the psyche imprisoned within the human body. These mortals can’t look sideways, but rather only straight ahead. On top of this, they also can’t leave the cave. These prisoners are facing a cave wall that they can only see shadows reflecting from a fire of what they imagine are men. These mortals have been in this cave since childhood, which makes them believe the shadows themselves are the men, not a shadow of an actual man. Again, according to Fiero, the light, represents true knowledge, and the shadows on the walls of the cave represent the imperfect and perishable imitations of the forms that occupy the world of the senses.

Plato’s allegory of the cave, located in the 2nd edition of Discovering Your Vision and Voice, explains that people experience emotional and intellectual revelations throughout different stages in their lives. In this short story I believe Plato’s goal is to represent the way a philosopher gains knowledge. There are various types of knowledge explored throughout this story like the knowledge that we are told and expected to believe, and the one that is learned through personal experiences.

He was above ground and now he’s trying to explain to the prisoners how life is outside of the cave. He tries to express that what they’ve been haring from the shadows are just opinions and not actual facts. “And if they can get hold of this person who takes it in hand to free them from their chains and to lead them up, and if they could kill him, will they actually kill him?” at this point, Plato seems to suggest that maybe they are starting to dislike him because he tries to come back and help out after leaving them behind for so long. College students seem to lose the relationships they’ve had with people in high school because sometimes you have to sacrifice a social life to focus on the main goal. And its like, once you reach it, you then try to tie back with others but they don’t see things the same because they feel as if you already betrayed them. It’s the cycle of life where some people are just stuck in the dark and don’t see the light. And those that see the light have a hard time connecting back with those that didn’t see it and got left in the dark instead. This is what I believe Plato is trying to express to the reader when he returns to the cave and Glaucon thinks they will kill

The lesson being us as human beings tend to conform to society or what is considered the norm and often times reject new ideas because we’re afraid or too fixed minded to even ponder the thought of them. However those with these ideas who may seem wrong at the time are usually the ones who have a more vast understanding of life. Just as the freed prisoner who seemed blurry eyed and absurd by those conformed to the shadows, yet he had the clearer vision due to his examination of the unknown in which the prisoners had yet to discover. The prisoners’ closed mindedness had a connection to the poem “Truth” because the poem states, “And if sun comes how shall we greet him? Shall we not dread him, shall we not fear him… Shall we not shudder?-- Shall we not flee into the shelter, the dear thick shelter of the familiar propitious haze.” This has a connection with the “Allegory of the Cave” because in the poem they’re contemplating whether or not they would truly love the sun they say they desire so much as they are stuck in the shade, or end up fearing what they thought would never

As Socrates is describing the cave and the situation, he stresses the point that the prisoners are completely oblivious as to what is reality as they would know nothing but the shadows casted by items held by the puppeteers, and believe this to be their own reality. This is important to the story as it shows that what we believe is real from the moment we are born is completely wrong based on our own flawed interpretations of reality. The point so far is that it is not what we can see but what we can’t see is what grasps our minds and Plato describes this thinking as “imagination.”