Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave
THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE
By Plato
The well-known myth of the cavern, is used by Plato as an allegorical explanation of the situation in which the man is in regard to the knowledge that surrounds him. Plato divided this allegory in three parts:
1. Description of the situation of the prisoners in the cavern.
2. Description of the process of liberation of one of them and of his access to the top or real world.
3. Brief interpretation of the myth. Plato asks us to imagine that we are like a few prisoners who inhabit an underground cavern. These prisoners from children are chained and immobile in such a way that only they can look and see the fund of the stay. Behind them and in a higher plane there is a fire that illuminates it; between the fire and the prisoners there is a higher way at the edge of which one finds a wall or dividing …show more content…
The prisoner would be unable to perceive the things which shades it had seen earlier. He would be confused and would believe that the shades that earlier it was perceiving are more real or real than the things that now it sees. If by force one was dragging him towards the exterior he would feel pain and, accustomed to the darkness, it might not perceive anything. In the exterior world he the easier first glance would be the shades, later the reflexes of the men and of the objects in the water, then the men and the objects themselves. Next he would contemplate at night what exists in the sky and the light of the stars and the moon. Finally it would perceive the sun, but not in images but in itself and for itself. After this it would conclude, with regard to the sun, that it is what produces the stations and the years, which everything governs in the visible ambience and which somehow it is a cause of the things that they had
By Plato
The well-known myth of the cavern, is used by Plato as an allegorical explanation of the situation in which the man is in regard to the knowledge that surrounds him. Plato divided this allegory in three parts:
1. Description of the situation of the prisoners in the cavern.
2. Description of the process of liberation of one of them and of his access to the top or real world.
3. Brief interpretation of the myth. Plato asks us to imagine that we are like a few prisoners who inhabit an underground cavern. These prisoners from children are chained and immobile in such a way that only they can look and see the fund of the stay. Behind them and in a higher plane there is a fire that illuminates it; between the fire and the prisoners there is a higher way at the edge of which one finds a wall or dividing …show more content…
The prisoner would be unable to perceive the things which shades it had seen earlier. He would be confused and would believe that the shades that earlier it was perceiving are more real or real than the things that now it sees. If by force one was dragging him towards the exterior he would feel pain and, accustomed to the darkness, it might not perceive anything. In the exterior world he the easier first glance would be the shades, later the reflexes of the men and of the objects in the water, then the men and the objects themselves. Next he would contemplate at night what exists in the sky and the light of the stars and the moon. Finally it would perceive the sun, but not in images but in itself and for itself. After this it would conclude, with regard to the sun, that it is what produces the stations and the years, which everything governs in the visible ambience and which somehow it is a cause of the things that they had