What Is The Allegory Of The Cave

All in all, “The Allegory of the cave” by Plato, pursuits to turn people’s perception free to the hidden truth. Let alone, that truth is the only key to our salvation which will lead us to grasp the purest being of ourselves. In that respect, we will alter the life around us and the nature we live in as an infection spreading in the air for the pure genuine

Imagine yourself sitting inside a dark, damp, cave where the only thing you can see are moving shadows on the cave wall in front of you. You can’t move anywhere or see anything besides the shadows, and these are the only things you’ve seen for your entire life, so these moving dark images are the most real things you’ve ever known. At some point in our childhood we were mentally in this state of darkness, we didn’t know anything about the world or have any complex thoughts. How then, were we brought out of our caves of darkness and misunderstanding? The Allegory of the Cave is a well known section of Plato’s

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).

I had an experience that each represents the symbol towards the Allegory of the Cave. My childhood was mostly in Jamaica where I lived with my father for two to three years. I can relate to the symbols from the "Allegory of the Cave".

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.

In Plato's Republic, the great philosopher describes what is needed to achieve a perfect society. He addresses several subjects still debated in today's society, such as justice, gender roles, and the proper form of education. He discusses these issues through his main character, Socrates. Socrates, another well-known philosopher for his time, happens upon a group of men, and what begins as a modest question, leads into a series of debates, metaphors, and allegories. Perhaps the most discussed allegory in today's popular culture is the Allegory of the Cave. Over the past decade, several movies have mimicked the fantasy, the most profitable being the Matrix Trilogy. But what makes this story so fascinating? Through it, Plato attempts to map

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.

The Republic is considered to be one of Plato’s most storied legacies. Plato recorded many different philosophical ideals in his writings. Addressing a wide variety of topics from justice in book one, to knowledge, enlightenment, and the senses as he does in book seven. In his seventh book, when discussing the concept of knowledge, he is virtually addressing the cliché “seeing is believing”, while attempting to validate the roots of our knowledge. By his use of philosophical themes, Plato is able to further his points on enlightenment, knowledge, and education. In this allegory, the depictions of humans as they are chained, their only knowledge of the world is what is seen inside the cave. Plato considers what would happen to people

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?

The whole point of the allegory is to represent to journey to enlightenment. The prisoners represent either the unenlightened that have not had enough experience to gain great wisdom or the uneducated that have not learned enough to gain great intelligence. And being thrown out of the cave into the outside world represents the process of becoming enlightened. Once enlightened they would of course not want to leave and to make them go back into the Cave would be cruel, as is noted by Glaucon. But as is explained they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not” (873). Plato claims that these enlightened have a moral responsibility to bring their wisdom to the common people in order to help them learn more so everyone can benefit from the knowledge of an individual. This is certainly an agreeable prospect and one that is not seen enough in the real world. Once

The second stage of the Allegory of the Cave consists of the process leading up to enlightenment. Plato represents the difficulties of leaving a comfortable reality where you are content with your own ideas by comparing it to the harshness of a flickering flame. The bright light of the fire that you are newly being exposed to after being held in the dark for so long can be painful, and hard to cope with or understand. The journey from ignorance to a better understanding can be confusing. As humans, we naturally don’t want to be forced to question our own ideas and the things we know to be true, but it is this uncomfortable, driving force that can lead us out of our own contentment and onto the path of better understanding. Plato so eloquently describes this challenging journey by comparing it to that of a prisoner being forced to visually take in all of this new information that he had not previously been exposed to. It takes a great deal of strength to be able to challenge the world around you and develop your own ideas, rather than taking everything around you in on a surface value.

Enlightenment is a constant theme in the Allegory of the Cave, from refusing it, to being enlightened. The prisoners in the cave refuse enlightenment even when it is right under their nose; however one prisoner questions their existence and escapes the cave. He sees the brightness of the sun; this is a metaphor for the form on Good. At first he struggles to see because his understanding of the concepts are jaded due to lack of use however after a little persistence his eyes fully open to see everything that surrounds him (this is like when Neo is unplugged in the matrix, he asks why his eyes hurt, the reply is “because you’ve never used them before” this is exactly the same as the people in the cave). Finally the prisoner lifts his head and looks directly at the sun and realises that this is what illuminates all, this is exactly what the form on the good does, the form of the good illuminates the rest of the concepts (justice, love, beauty etc.)This is why the form on the good is placed at the top due to hierarchy of the

There exists a place in one’s mind that determines what is real, and what is not. One could argue this distant concept as being linked to the subconscious; others, such as Neil Gaiman, provide a template for existence on the other side. The children’s story Coraline reveals the truth of darkness and confusion in a supposed replicated dimension. The Allegory of the Cave is an essay written by philosopher Plato that explains the analogy of prisoners kept facing a wall in a cave to those who experience a perfectly formed enlightenment of the mind. Those who break free are unveiled into this bright and amazing world and are initially overwhelmed, for everything that they once thought to be is instantly proved to be wrong, or more to say, altered. The theory of forms, applied to this story, assumes the existence of some distant reality, with the perfect “forms”. This idea provides for all things in the real world that we physically and mentally live in. The forms are theoretically donated into the real world, but lose their perfection along the way, and instead inherit a base for numerous opinions: these are the objects that human’s perceive every day. The forms in Coraline are displayed, with all child appeal, as within a physical small door, leading to the “other side” of the flat. In the world, objects are beautiful and wondrous, but confusion of course sets in, as the new view is so astray from the normal source of opinions. The captured sense is new, and truly; horrific.

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 the story Allegory of the Cave Plato states that people can believe in illusion and accept it is a reality. All in all, I responded, those who were chained would consider nothing besides the shadows of the artifacts as the unhidden. When a person lives with an illusion their whole life, it comes to a point that it becomes their reality as the prisoners in the cave they were chined all there life so their reality are their own shadows. An illusion is something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality. Reality is the state of things as they are or appear to be rather than as one might wish them to be.