Preview

Plato's Uneducated Cave

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
200 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Plato's Uneducated Cave
Throughout his readings, Plato makes many points showing us that his prisoners are like us, but inside an uneducated cave with uneducated prisoners. He points out that we have understanding because of our senses. The reflections that the prisoners see are the true reality in the outside world but are invisible and are only known with the mind. The prisoners’ face the dark wall while they see and guess what these objects are that pass by them as shadows. Plato uses a metaphor, ‘adjusting the eyes’ which shows us that education is difficult and requires some sufferings. As one prisoner breaks free from his chains he goes towards the light. While he is out and exploring, his eyes finally adjust and the shadows that he was seeing were actually

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Plato’s philosophical beliefs by the Allegory of the Cave represents how people view the world by what they see and hear and that we are blinded because of it. The cave itself represents how we are all trapped from the real knowledge that we are too blinded to see. The shadows in the cave are supposed to be what we think is true and that they’re really just shadows of the truth. The prisoner leaving the cave represents the people who actually try to go out and seek knowledge and the sun is representing the truth in life. The prisoner returning to the cave represents how most people are too scared to except the philosophical truth and are actually scared of…

    • 122 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The metaphor depicts prisoners who understand life only through shadows flickering on the wall of their cave. Here he paints a frightening image of “prisoners [who] have been chained from childhood” forced to stare at the cavernous wall ahead of them (296). As they have never left their dark dwelling and are ignorant of the reality that exists outside of it, the prisoners are duped into thinking the “meaningless illusions” they see are real (297). Through metaphor, Plato asserts that one who understands life only through sensual perceptions is shamefully deprived of a complete and holistic accurate…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Plato’s allegory of the cave, Plato starts with describing a scenario where prisoners are chained up in chairs since birth that prevents them from moving or turning their heads. These prisoners are limited to facing a wall inside a cave. These prisoners witness images displayed on the wall which are shadows that are made by a group of people who are in front of a fire displaying statues of various objects. These prisoners believe that the shadows are the most real things in the world since they have never been exposed to anything else.…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Is it true that from the first day you were born until the day you die you are surrounded by false shadows-false shadows that are made by our peers in order to keep us from making our own decisions and realizations? According to “The Myth of the Cave” written by Plato, that is exactly how the world works. From my standing point I couldn’t agree more. Our society is constantly being manipulated. Whether it’s by false advertisements or somebody else’s behavior, society is constantly controlling the way we think.…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exist in the soul…

    • 1633 Words
    • 7 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
  • Good Essays

    Allegory of the Cave is a dialog between Socrates and Gloucon in The Republic written by Plato. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Socrates depicts a long, dark cave with a small opening that allows a small amount of light to enter. Inside the cave there group of prisoners, who have been in the cave for their entire lives. The prisoners legs and necks are chained to the cave floor so they are unable to move and can only look forward at the cave wall. At the back of the cave there is a fire that they are never able to view. In between the prisoners and the fire there is a low wall with a path behind it, along which people carry pictures, puppets, and statues. These pictures, puppets and statues are all the prisoners are able to see, and the echoes of the puppeteers when they speak are all they are able to hear. Although the prisoners are chained they are still content because all they have ever known are the shadows. None of them have ever seen anything beyond the cave and have no desire to do so. However one prisoner wakes up to find that he is no longer chained to the floor, and is able to leave the cave. Once the prisoner is outside he realizes that the shadows are not real. The prisoner then decides to return to the cave, to free the other prisoners, however reentering the cave would make his eyes have to…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Education allows people to learn more about themselves, and therefore, learn more about each other. Really, the only thing that makes sense in life is to strive for greater collective enlightenment. Plato shows how people become content with life’s delusions when they are not constantly seeking the truth and how experiencing new things will expand their mind to new thoughts and ideas that they were previously blind to. Frederick Douglass shows how humans can use the lack of education to keep others in the dark and only through education can those people break free. Thomas Newman presents the idea that once you are educated, you shouldn’t be satisfied and you should continue to seek out new forms of knowledge. These three author’s ideas collectively…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story, Plato uses the prisoners as representative of human perception. “Like ourselves … they see only … shadows ...” (Plato 507). Much like “ourselves” (humans), prisoners only know their own “truths”, the shadows, which are based on what they experienced and learned; it does not matter what reality is. Therefore in the story, Socrates talks about exposing them to the truth. “… unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then … his eye is turned towards more real existence …” (Plato 507-508). Before the prisoner can accept reality, they need to adjust to it by seeing the “more real existence,” after seeing the shadows. “… he is forced into the presence of the sun … He will grow require to accustomed to the sight … then reason about him” (Plato 508). By exposing them to a greater truth (the sun), or the reality…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plato Vs Stockman

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Plato’s work, The Allegory of the Cave, there are people chained in a cave where they are shown shadow depiction of images. While there is a group of people casting these shadows, one of the chained prisoners is visited by someone who convinces him to leave the cave. Once out of…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    english paper

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Socrates illustrates a metaphorical story about attaining knowledge. He describes a cave with men who are chained, prisoners of the cave. They face a wall; that is all they can see because they cannot move their heads. They cannot even look behind them to see a walkway and a fire. As a person passes on the walkway, a shadow is projected onto the wall in front of the prisoners; this is all they know. Only the shadows are what is real to them because it’s all they have ever known. Socrates says, “How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” (Plato 479). The main point is that people cannot understand anything except what is being projected right in front of them. Socrates’ point is that society has a limited understanding of knowledge, and is ignorant about what is beyond the surroundings.…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plato's Cave

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Plato's "Allegory of the cave" the believed perception of reality is portrayed through images of shadows on a wall, in a cave, where the only existence of reality is what is seen in front of one's eyes. In today's present-day the shadows still exist and are depicted in a different form of media through television, computers, movies, and ones personal cell phone. All which are a big part of our daily life. We all have a choice to accept the realities given to us and believe in the shadows created.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Plato’s allegory of the cave, those with higher education are recommended to slowly aid the uneducated. However in Push, her parents within the cave brainwashes Precious. Influencing her to shun out “social worker teacher ass nosing around”. (Push 17) This is further worsen, as her elementary instructors believed Precious was one who could not learn, and gave up for the sake of the other children's education. Like Malcolm X, once the reason was discovered, intrinsic grit pushed her as “school gonna help me get out of dis house.” (40) The newly obtained knowledge helped free Precious and allowed a taste of normal life. She also acquired social capital with a network of supportive peers. As this text ends on a high note, there are many within…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good 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

    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