Allegory of the Cave

Plato’s “The allegory of the Cave” addresses so many different areas of philosophy including, epistemology, metaphysics, asceticism, ethics, etc. In his allegory it is important to seek what Plato is trying to accomplish through locating his rhetorical devices, his tone, his position and arguments, in order to develop meaning to his allegory. Plato’s philosophies include education, interaction, individuality, and human nature to make his statement of what the correct path to “enlightenment” should be, being expressed through symbolism, imagery, themes, and metaphors to convey his message. Plato’s allegory however is actually represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. “The allegory of the Cave” plays multiple roles, all depending how we interpret it, either being used as a metaphor for the process of intellectual understandings on the quest for sense and knowledge, or a way to portray parts of his political philosophy, involving the correct the path to “the good” and ‘reality’. Plato’s allegory of the cave is a parable to understand the process of how a person becomes enlightened; including the positives and negatives influences it can have on a person in their natural environment, in other words our responses and reaction to being freed from their chains and being forced to experience life outside the cave.

Plato’s allegory of the cave presupposes a group of prisoners who have lived chained and uneducated in a cave “since childhood”. To the back of the prisoners, people cast the shadows on the wall in which the prisoners perceive as reality, questioning “is it reasonable for the prisoners to…In every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of these artifacts” Although if one were “released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance” the prisoner would now be confused as to what is real. The thesis behind is the basic tenets that all we perceive are imperfect