Plato's Allegory Of The Cave In The Republic
Analysis of Plato’s allegory of the Cave in the Republic
In the Republic, Book VII, Plato through Socrates presents the allegory of the cave. This allegory is used to help the explanation of how the philosophers are educated from ignorance to knowledge. Socrates defends that true education is not just seeing shadows and visible objects but understanding their nature. This allegory illustrates how, in relying on the senses and perception, man mistakes the shadows for reality. The people inside the cave are passive, unreflective and restrained. They live in darkness and conformity. Plato through the character of Socrates describes a den, with prisoners chained, so that they could not move, therefore all they saw were nothing but images cast on the wall by the fire. All they heard were voices from the shadows. The shadows are nothing but images of the reality of the outside world to which their back is turn too, but for the prisoners is the only reality they know. “The truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the image” (The Republic 252).If one of the prisoners was released and turned …show more content…
When using the Allegory of the cave he made me see that the prisoners in the cave can only learn when one is free from the chains, forced to the light and forced to learn, and accept things as they truly are. Rather than as one sense them to be. I agree with the author’s opinion that by changing people’s ways and forcing them to change they can reverse their tendency to pursue what they incorrectly think to be happiness and seek for true happiness. Which is the pursuit of virtue and reason. The chosen topic relates to the discussion we had in class on February the 12th about the fact that Plato believed that our body senses can only give us, the shadows, imitation of forms or ideas. Therefore our senses at their best can only give us copies and at their worst deceive us. Making difficult to us to attain knowledge and
In the Republic, Book VII, Plato through Socrates presents the allegory of the cave. This allegory is used to help the explanation of how the philosophers are educated from ignorance to knowledge. Socrates defends that true education is not just seeing shadows and visible objects but understanding their nature. This allegory illustrates how, in relying on the senses and perception, man mistakes the shadows for reality. The people inside the cave are passive, unreflective and restrained. They live in darkness and conformity. Plato through the character of Socrates describes a den, with prisoners chained, so that they could not move, therefore all they saw were nothing but images cast on the wall by the fire. All they heard were voices from the shadows. The shadows are nothing but images of the reality of the outside world to which their back is turn too, but for the prisoners is the only reality they know. “The truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the image” (The Republic 252).If one of the prisoners was released and turned …show more content…
When using the Allegory of the cave he made me see that the prisoners in the cave can only learn when one is free from the chains, forced to the light and forced to learn, and accept things as they truly are. Rather than as one sense them to be. I agree with the author’s opinion that by changing people’s ways and forcing them to change they can reverse their tendency to pursue what they incorrectly think to be happiness and seek for true happiness. Which is the pursuit of virtue and reason. The chosen topic relates to the discussion we had in class on February the 12th about the fact that Plato believed that our body senses can only give us, the shadows, imitation of forms or ideas. Therefore our senses at their best can only give us copies and at their worst deceive us. Making difficult to us to attain knowledge and