Preview

Plato's The Allegory Of A Cave

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
472 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Plato's The Allegory Of A Cave
The Allegory of the Cave Analysis
Plato’s The Allegory of a Cave there are two men discussing whether or not someone who has only been kept in the dark would have trouble adjusting to a new enlightened world. Plato was a teacher, so his story must’ve been for his students to ponder. Plato tells his story in a very solemn way, almost as if he’s teaching the audience in a very patient way. Plato compared the man in the dark to someone who had little knowledge and when he entered to a world with light he had learned new things and brought out of his ignorance.
At first, the metaphor Plato uses makes the man seem completely close-minded and ignorant. “Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In The Republic, the Philosopher King becomes compelled to tell his citizens medicinal lies. When the citizens do not understand something, like medicinal things, the philosopher king becomes able to tell them almost anything and they will believe everything he says, and exalt him. He is compelled to do this to ease their minds, since they would not understand anyway, he figures it is just easier to not tell them. The Philosopher King also seems to understand more than what the citizens understand. But it isn’t his nature that sets him apart from citizens like him, it is his wisdom, virtue, and knowledge that lifts him higher than everyone else, and allows his to “understand” things that the regular citizens would not. This suits him because he is so wise, he understands why the citizens do not understand what he understands, or knows.…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Plato's Allegory of the Cave there were multiple beliefs brought upon by the prisoners of this cave. The prisoners of the cave are supposed to parallel everyday people in the sense of how reality is perceived. The prisoners of the cave believed and only knew that reality of the shadows and developed their own belief structure and way of processing that information. Plato connected that to everyday people due to the fact that although we strongly believe the reality we have made for ourselves, there can be more that we have never been exposed to. For example, when one of the prisoners were unchained and brought out of the cave into the world, he was overwhelmed and wanted to tell the other prisoners. Due to the fact that other prisoners could…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Book 7, Socrates presents the famous metaphor – allegory of cave. The metaphor demonstrates the influence of education on a human soul. People see shadows of statues in the dark place and believe these figures to be real. This shows people’s lowest stage on the Socrates’ line – imagination. When a prisoner is unchained, blinded with the light of fire, within the time he sees that indeed shadows are reflections of statues. This is where belief is represented - he sees the link and percepts this to be real. Finally, the person is taken out of the cave and, blinded within the sunlight, later he sees the real world: real trees, flowers, animals,…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Michael Ramsey’s video depicting Plato’s Allegory of the Cave men are held captive in a cave since childhood. The only reality they knew was demonstrated before them as the shadows of civilians as they passed by them. All seemed normal in their world until one of the prisoners was set free and taken out of the cave. Once his eyes became adjusted, he was able to accept the new reality portrayed all around him. I had a similar experience when I transitioned from high school to college. In high school my reality was based on the security, structure, and guidance provided by exterior influences, college has helped me to change my perception of reality.…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The allegory of the cave in Plato’s Republic is a metaphor meant to illustrate Plato’s views on knowledge but also strengthens his perception of the noble lie in society, an idea that is still very relevant today. It is designed to ask the fundamental question of: “What is the truth?” This is a clear reference Plato’s ideology that rests upon the sworn duty that Guardians make towards the state and it is hence emphasized by this analogy. The journey that one makes to be able to attain that superior state is full of hardships1(The Republic, 516, a) but it is meant to illustrate the route the Guardians take to attain the Philosopher-King status. It is what leads a man to enlightenment but also establishes a supreme duty for whoever discovers…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, a dialogue between two men, Socrates and Glaucon, reveals that our senses are not completely reliable. Socrates tells the story of a prisoner who has been chained for his whole life, able to see only shadows cast on a wall. The prisoner believed that the shadows were reality, but when he is released and dragged out of the cave, he finds a more important, more authentic reality. Socrates arrives to the conclusion that our senses are limited, just like the prisoner’s were, and that in order to come closer to the truth, we need to enter the world of intellect.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Allegory of the Cave 1

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Plato uses his Cave to show that the reality we are all use to and accustomed to is just a sham. It can often be a difficult journey to find God and have him in your life. The chains can represent the evil that holds man back from the path to glory. We all like to believe we are good and the prisoners new no other reality and felt what they see is the truth. They cannot accept that there is something better than the life they live. These evils are what we meant to avoid and to escape from evil. I personally view the prisoner as one…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ayan Rand Anthem Analysis

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the story it says “They think the thing they see on the wall where the shadow is they do not know nothing about what course of the shadow” Plato uses the word in the book. Mainly about these two stories the knowledge of the cave and Anthem the author inform us and the reader of the intelligence that this the key to avoid being controlled by other and we have to work together to live. The significance of this both story is that the people is being overthink of the situation. In the world there are kids who can’t afford education because their parents can’t afford them. We have to work together to live and not let anyone treat us…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Because I love Socrates I find everything Plato writes thoroughly interesting. The minute he opened this part of The Republic with “how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened,” I was interested. The part in the Allegory of the cave that stood out to me was the transformation of the man from the shadows to the sun then back again. It is here that everything seemed to fall in place. The people in the shadows seemed, t me, to have an erroneous conscious, simply because they were living in the shadows. The shadows represented the gist of reality. It was the appearance of an object but not the depth of it. The shadows seemed like a false reality, there to see but unable to be grasped in any way. When the ,an went from the shadows to the sun he refused to believe there was such a thing other than what he had learned from the cave, therefore the sun would represent what reality actually is. The prisoner of the cave was unable to accept reality when he was first introduced to it because for all of his life he had only been able to reach the shadows of reality, not the full thing and he believed he had learned all that there was of reality so he refused to believe there was anything else to say about the manner. The transition from the fake world to true reality took him a while but after one begins to live in reality when he is sent back nothing else will ever make sense. The sun, reality, was able to change a man’s mind, one who had been in the dark for his entire life, but…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    To conclude, Plato’s Cave explains the way society is and how people can either choose to…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Allegory of the Cave

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Allegory of the Cave is a metaphor that can be seen to describe many aspects and situations in life that one had no control or choice over. The reason Plato uses many metaphors in his allegory is to think or ‘philosophize’ about the world around us because in fact our understanding of the world is very limited. This is due to the fact that we live in a world of shadows and not reality to whom very little is actually known about by everyone. The metaphors are seen to actually represent a society with all its people, truths, hidden meanings, problems, solutions etc… The meanings transferred in the allegory of the cave apply to philosophy because it shows the philosophers position in society. It gives the philosopher the opportunity to philosophize/think about what exists/reality and what does not exist in our surrounding environment. To society, the allegory of the cave contemplates many issues related to man in his society. Such issues include human’s ability to be ignorant or knowledgeable, free or imprisoned, stubborn, lazy, active, etc… by choosing either to or not to search for answers to many of the issues that arise continuously. Moreover, The Allegory of the Cave is about ignorance and learning because the men in the cave are ignorant or unaware of the outside world that exists except for the shadows that they saw passing by on the walls. The man who is freed engages in the process of learning from the moment he is released from the cave and is forced to adapt to the new conditions and situations that now surround him. In addition, the chains are used to symbolize the limited amount of information that a person has about reality. For whatever reason, this limited amount of information can be considered to be a type of ignorance. Last but not least, as humans in this world, many of us are really ignorant…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Allegory of the Cave

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The cave represents the people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world.The prisoners represent an ignorant, unenlightened, and narrow society. This would comprise of those who have not yet understood the meaning of life.The prisoners are without sun, without a higher understanding, and have limited understanding.Those who are chained represent all human beings who have been forced to think in one particular way; The chains are symbolic of limitations that pull us away from the truth. These chains permit the prisoners only to see shadows replicated by a fire behind them. These chained prisoners are restricted to only what the fire allows them to see – their own perceptions. Because the prisoners cannot see what or who is behind them, they accept those shadows as reality.Their full understanding arises only when the shackles are unbound and can comprehend clearly. The cave shadows are ambiguous and unclear, distorted, without any true form. Plato successfully utilizes the shadows to demonstrate those who cannot see an accurate, clear reality. The prisoners are seeing the shadows as a reality of the visible world, yet their reality are flawed and not the true form. The shadows symbolize what we observe with our senses, and not with our mental understandings – they may well be misrepresentations but we are incapable of…

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Allegory Of The Cave

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to Plato, people being forever trapped in a material world, will never attain true knowledge. In Plato’s writing, he portrays a discussion held by philosopher Socrates about people being enslaved in chains inside a…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation”. This quote by Rabindranath Tagore reveals some of my perspective on what is important to focus on when examining your beliefs of philosophy. As explained in the Allegory of the Cave by Plato, some of reality is merely shadows; in Plato’s perspective, this puppet show view is created by the materialistic world. An ideal ‘real world’ is made up of ideas, thoughts, feelings and other nonmaterial beliefs. Inside the cave, one is blinded and is only seeing reflections and shadows of the real world; this is how most humans live today.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through his ideas and archetypal use of shadows, Plato suggests that the humans are viewing images through someone else’s perspective and that it will be the only reality they will know. He uses shadows to represent the “illusions of reality” because the prisoners have been their “from their childhood” and the only true objects they know are…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays