Preview

the summary of the allegory of the cave

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
475 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
the summary of the allegory of the cave
According to how Plato depicts prisoners, I think I am a prisoner. To begin I can say that Plato through his allegory illustrates how we are all prisoners in this world. He does that by comparing our lack of knowledge of what is real and what is not to his prisoners who knew nothing except the shadows of reality, and who believed what they saw as real. For example, at the beginning when Plato depicts the kind of prisoners he is talking about, Glaucon responds by saying that it is a strange image, and then Plato replied by asking: “like ourselves; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?” My answer to this question would be yes, because even in our modern lives, there are people who are never exposed to the truth and they take what they have heard as the real truths which are those shadows that Plato was talking about. At a certain point Plato talks a little bit about the release of prisoners and the challenges they would face in front of the reality, so this fortifies my opinion as a prisoner. In fact he says that when out; a prisoner would have trouble agreeing that what he saw before was nothing but an illusion. His idea that we are uncertain of what is true or what is not, again show us that we are prisoners of our uncertainties. As an example take someone who grew up in an irreligious family. That person will have troubles accepting that God exists and may be ignorant for ever about the subject; which means that he can be a prisoner forever according to the allegory. ‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather think as they do and live after their manner?’ Plato quote this in order emphasize how the lack of knowledge is worse than being a prisoner or a slave. We also entertain false notion in this word, and live in a miserable manner with ignorance. We even have difficulties accepting the truth when it comes, so this highly

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

    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

    This is often done with the idea of implementing or promoting change by informing the general populace about a given problem and appealing to people's sense of justice. And the given problem in Plato’s story is being trapped in your mind, only seeing shadows and not reality. However he proposes that knowledge gained through the sense is no more than opinion and in order to gain true knowledge you must follow the path of philosophy. Furthermore in the Allegory the prisoner that returns to the cave after seeing the outside world and all the new colors and dimensions tries to appeal to the rest of the prisoners and encourage them to go to the outside world but as in Plato’s life trying to teach others a new way scares them. As an attempt to get people to follow Socrates he appeals to logos. For example, when he states that it is improbable that he could succeed in making people worse while so many others are invested in making people better, he is using the topos of greater and…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "Allegory of the Cave", Plato in all ways sets up in description the truth as being a higher plane of enlightenment than is achieved by the normal man. By describing it as the "light" and the alternative to truth as a form of "captivity", he sets up the prisoners below as being chained to their weak ideals. In a demeaning tone he speaks of how the chained men have contests among themselves to pick out quickly what they believe to be reality, but which is only a shadow, as is everything they see.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The journey that “prisoners” of that cave take is in the ultimate goal to attain knowledge of the abstract world. By doing so, the few who left this place establish themselves above the slaves that are still living within the depths of the cave(521, a). The interesting part of this allegory is that it shows that this cave has an entrance and hence shows the possibility there is a light out of the tunnel and be able to reach the enlightened state. Plato clearly explains the difference between the people that are left behind the cave and those who ventured out on their journey to discover the universal truth: “…the author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic source of truth and reason” (517, c). All of this is especially relevant in Plato’s thinking. He specifies in his Republic only a few will manage the reach the status of Philosopher-King and hence grasp the universal truth. It is up for the Guardian class to accomplish such a task through hardships and tough education throughout their lives to prepare them for this difficult task. It also justifies his vision that not all men are born with equal status and therefore the Noble lie. With this allegory, he is able to show the Noble Lie idea and firmly affirms that not all men can become “gold” and that only a few will manage to endure the hardships of the light and become the philosopher-king. One who chooses such a path hence refuses to live his life in ignorance and by doing so, forgets the past: “Would he not find his eyes so dazzled by the glare as to be incapable of making out so much as one of the objects that are now called true” (516, a) It is the existentialist value that men have responsible for their own self community and in…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Allegory of the Cave 1

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Does the path leading out of the cave represent the path to God? Plato shows it as a path to the supreme Good which he represents with the sun. He also states that the sun makes the prisoner who escapes turn away at first due to the brightness. “the light of the sun makes him turn his gaze away from it” (Srivastava, S Parg. 4). Could this be the light of God and how strong it is and the faith that it shows us is sometimes hard for us to accept. The prisoners are used to being in a dark cave. Is this what we live in until we find God? Could this be what Plato is showing us? I feel Plato is showing how we all get used to what is around us and seem to forget the real world and life we should be living in.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato embodied a metaphor that compares the way in which we see and believe is actual reality. He creates a cave where prisoners are chained down and are forced to stare at the dark wall in front of them. They are sheltered from any light. You can also perceive this in a different sense, for example all that they see in the world is darkness and that they do not know the difference between what is real and what they consider as “real.” “Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good 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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Plato suggests that reality is only ‘real’ because of the form of the good (the sun), but the prisoners only have the fire, a copy of the form of the good, and not the sun – the highest form of the good- which is discovered when escaping the cave and into the world of the forms. He also suggests the ‘reality’ is an illusion given to us by our empirical knowledge. In other words, the cave (the world around us) would be the ‘real world’ illusion given unto us by our senses (empirical knowledge), Plato believed that we should never trust our senses, only our ability to reason and our logic.…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory 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

    The Allegory of the Cave by Plato questions truth, reality, and demonstrates how we are similar to the prisoners within the cave. Every person has a personal “cave” and only with knowledge and understanding can we escape from the captivity ignorance.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Republic”, Plato’s longest work, has many views about philosophy and characters within and there is one character that truly stands out and entices you to read on until the very end; that was Socrates. Socrates was a mentor and a friend of Plato’s and in Plato’s eyes, he was a great and wise Philosopher that was a martyr for philosophy. Within “The Republic”, Plato has written a symbolic account about one of Socrates’ teachings of education or the enlightenment of the mind and soul; “The Allegory of the Cave”. In this, Socrates describes how education is important so that the mind and soul are enlightened and not forever dwelling within the shadows.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    comparison essay

    • 1212 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Plato describes a situation where people are imprisoned in a cave and are forced to live in this reality in “Myth of the Cave.” “The men have been chained foot and neck since childhood” (Plato 175). They are only to look forward, “ The chains keep them in place and prevent them from turning their heads, so that they can only see forward” (Plato 175). Their reality is going to be the wall they are staring at and the sounds they hear. They cannot look behind them. The prisoners will see their shadows casted on the wall, created by the fire behind the low wall. They would believe that whenever a person passing by would speak, it was the shadowing speaking. These prisoners would see reality as shadows on a wall because that’s all they have ever seen. “Now if they could talk to each other, don’t you think they’d believe what they saw was reality?” “Necessarily” (Plato 175).…

    • 1212 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Allegory of the Cave

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. The thesis behind his allegory is the basic tenets that all we perceive are imperfect "reflections" of the ultimate Forms, which subsequently represent truth and reality. The purpose of this allegory defines clearly the process of enlightenment. For a man to be enlightened, he must above all desire the freedom to explore and express himself. Plato's main concept of the cave is: people see reality as the visible world when reality really is more than the visible world.…

    • 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