Analysis Of Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

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. I agree with Socrates that the senses are limited, but I maintain that it is a combination of senses and intellect that allows us to come closer to the truth. I think it is unclear if Socrates and I would disagree, because Socrates does not explicitly say that you cannot learn from the senses, rather he says that the mind is the way to learn. Socrates explains that the allegory represents our world and the way our senses can interpret it. “The prison house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent
When the prisoner has finally come to understand what he has been missing out on, he pities the other prisoners who are locked up. The prisoner says that it is, “better to be a poor slave of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner.” (870) Going back to that unenlightened way of living would be a torture. It’s clear that to the freed prisoner a world of shadows is of little value in comparison to the world of light. What follows from this conclusion is that to understand the world only through our senses is like being caged. To experience true freedom is to understand the world