The cave, symbolic of the mother's womb, is the source of life and death. In “The Allegory of the Cave”, from Book VII of Plato’s Republic, the theme of the cycle of life and the transition from the unborn to the deceased is representative of the cycle of entry and exit from the cave. If based upon this idea, one can conclude that the chains are symbolic of the umbilical cord. This concept reflects the Greek values of reproduction, humanism, and the anti-hero, because the anti-hero is symbolized by returning to the mother. The value of reproduction is seen in early Spartan civilizations, for both Spartan men and women were held to a very high standard and were expected to give birth to strong sons that would become fierce warriors so as …show more content…
(Cook). The Republic is a work largely associated with the values of education, ethics, politics, religion, and sociology (Cook). Many people believe that Plato, who was an ancient Greek philosopher and a student of Socrates, is the greatest philosopher of the ancient world. Throughout the history of ancient Greece, Sparta is a profusely militaristic city-state, emphasizing the birth of strong children fit to become warriors. Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" may have influenced the early Spartan society, accounting for Sparta's heavy emphasis on raising strong children to continue the military …show more content…
For that reason, reproduction remains an important concept. Plato demonstrates this concept through the character of Socrates. For instance, Socrates explains to Glaucon, "Behold! human beings living in a underground cave…[they] have their legs and necks chained…At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains"(The Republic, The Allegory of the Cave). This quote explains the process of reproduction, which is the beginning of the cycle of life. In this scenario, the pain is relative to the usual crying of a newly born baby immediately following birth. Plato also depicts the idea of the anti-hero. This is observed when Socrates converses with Glaucon. For instance, Socrates says, "I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the cave, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not"(The Republic, The Allegory of the Cave). This passage implies that those select few that have escaped the confinement of the cave must return to the cave, which represents the path of the anti-hero, since the path of the hero is away from maternal influence and the cave is a mother symbol. Humanism, another imperative aspect of Greek culture, is seen when Socrates addresses Glaucon,
Portraying the prisoners inside the cave for a lifetime further describes his beliefs on how closed minded society is in his opinion. The “light outside the cave” explains how he feels knowledge is the source of light to everyone’s lives. Without knowledge, there is lack of light. Also, since society does not want to gain further knowledge, they will seem to stay stuck in the dark tunnel. Plato also uses personification to give reader insight on how someone may treat the earth and appreciate it. For example, Plato states “Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.” The reasoning behind this is to explain how a man would reason with the sun as if it were an actual speaking person. The style of Plato’s writing gives readers an understanding on why his work is named “Allegory of the Cave”. The use of his rhetorical devices give deeper meanings to the Earth and the nature it
In conclusion, the relevance of the “Allegory of the Cave” lies in the fact that its culmination continues to reoccur throughout history. Socrates, Galileo, and Martin Luther King Jr. are examples of important historical figures that have been condemned for their ability to make the journey out of the cave and return to deliver their community from the bonds that limit human growth. I believe the most important lessons to be found in Plato’s allegory are that we must learn to look beyond our immediate reality and that our actions should be geared toward unifying our communities. Only then will we arrive at the ultimate goal of living for the greater good.
Now, one of the main problems of mythology is reconciling the mind to this brutal precondition of all life, which lives by the killing and eating of lives. You don’t kid yourself by eating only vegetables, either, for they, too, are alive. So the essence of life is this eating of itself! Life lives on lives, and the reconciliation of the human mind and sensibilities to that fundamental fact is one of the functions of some of those very brutal rites in which the ritual consists chiefly of killing—in imitation, as it were, of that first, primordial crime, out of which arose this temporal world, in which we all participate. The reconciliation of mind to the conditions of...
We may think that we come up we ideas and theories because is something that happened in our mind and that nobody had to do something with it but all our surround environment influence us in how we take decision, in what we believe and much more. Philosophers had been influence throughout their life by other people in order to come up with their works. The philosophical work of some of the great philosophers of all time such as Plato, Marx, Freud and Carnegie were also influenced by the environment in which they were living. In the “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato was influenced by several events that happened in his life that lead to him writing this essay in a way to express his feeling on what society do to people that can show them reality.
The allegory of the cave starts off with Plato telling his audience to imagine that they are prisoners in a cave. He tells them that they are chained up to some large rocks and that their arms, legs, and head are tied so that they can only look at the stonewall directly
The Plato’s Allegory of the Cave written by Plato is a dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and Plato’s mentor Socrates. In the story, Plato presents a prisoner chained to the ground within a cave, and is facing a wall with animated puppets, which are the shadows cast by a light source from behind. The prisoner knows that other people are in the cave as well. For the prisoner, this is the reality of the world. Then one day, people come to the cave, and the prisoner is taking out from the cave with his chains removed. When the prisoner returns to the cave to inform the other prisoners of his discovery of the real world, the other prisoners do not believe him and decide to kill him if he tries to set them
Freedom in mind, freedom in nature, and freedom in subjectivity of individual are three kinds of freedoms. However, freedom should be expressed within the limits of reason and morality. Having freedom equals having the power to think, to speak, and to act without externally imposed restrains. As a matter of fact, finding freedom in order to live free is the common idea in Plato with "The Allegory of the Cave"; Henry David Thoreau with " Where I lived and What I lived for"; and Jean Paul Sartre with " Existentialism". Generally, Plato, Thoreau, and Sartre suggested that human life should be free. They differ in what that freedom is. Plato thinks it is found in the world of intellect, Thoreau thinks freedom is found in nature, and Sartre thinks freedom is found in subjectivity of individual.
The Republic is considered to be one of Plato’s most storied legacies. Plato recorded many different philosophical ideals in his writings. Addressing a wide variety of topics from justice in book one, to knowledge, enlightenment, and the senses as he does in book seven. In his seventh book, when discussing the concept of knowledge, he is virtually addressing the cliché “seeing is believing”, while attempting to validate the roots of our knowledge. By his use of philosophical themes, Plato is able to further his points on enlightenment, knowledge, and education. In this allegory, the depictions of humans as they are chained, their only knowledge of the world is what is seen inside the cave. Plato considers what would happen to people should they embrace the concepts of philosophy, to become enlightened by it, to see things as they truly are. As we have mentioned in class, Plato’s theory did not only present itself in his allegory, but also in the Wachowski brothers’ hit-film, The Matrix. In the film, the protagonist, Neo, suffers from a similar difficulty of adapting to reality, or the truth, which we will see later on. In order to understand Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, one must consider how Plato’s used of symbols to explain what true knowledge (or enlightenment) really is along the comparisons to the Wachowski brothers’ film, The Matrix.
The Allegory of the Cave is that we are chained to a wall. Behind us is another wall with figures walking across it, behind that wall is a pit of fire. The firelight casts shadows upon the wall in front of those chained to the wall. Because we are chained to the wall we believe the figures are what they represent. Plato says there times when one tries to break away from the wall but others encourage him to join back the wall as he experiences what the world truly is.
At the beginning of Book Seven, in an attempt to better describe the education of the philosopher Socrates begins to set up an analogy with an ascent and descent into “the cave”. In Socrates’ cave analogy there was a group of people who were from childhood held in a dimly lit underground cave. The people were kept there in bonds that were designed to allow them to only what was in front of them by depriving them of the ability to turn their heads around. Also present in Socrates’ cave was a certain wall or partition separating the prisoners from another group of people who simply walked along a path carrying statues shaped after all that of beings and occasionally uttering sounds as the others remained quiet. The shadows of the statues were cast onto the wall which the prisoner were forced to look upon while the other people were kept out of the shadows thanks to the partition.
In the essay “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato addresses how humans generally do not pursue knowledge. Most humans are satisfied with what they already know and do not want to expand their knowledge. Plato uses simple examples to help the reader understand his logic on why humans do not expand their knowledge.
Do we really understand the world we live in and see everyday? Is our everyday perception of reality a misinterpretation, which somehow we can’t break free from? A famous Greek philosopher by the name of Plato sought out to explain this in an experiment he called the Cave Allegory. I will discuss what the Cave Allegory is as well as talk about the movie Interstellar, which is a great example of Plato’s Cave Allegory and how it relates to Plato’s ideas. The question we have to answer first is, what is Plato’s Cave Allegory?
In his very well known work The Republic, Plato argues that philosophers should be kings or a king should be known as a philosopher or a ruler because these people have certain qualities like knowledge and a higher level of understanding that is required to rule a city . As mentioned in the book ,philosophers are the only ones who possess true knowledge and that immediately makes them in the eyes of Plato as the perfect fit to run a city. Plato mentions that philosophers loves the truth more than anything else and that their entire soul strives after the wisdom or the truth. This ultimately means that the rational part of his soul must rule, which means that his soul is just . In the famous Allegory of the Cave, Plato enforces that knowledge
"The Allegory of the Cave" and "The Apology" by Plato explore the methods in which people for themselves, usually through the cultivation of the soul. "The Allegory of the Cave" employs an allegory to highlight the importance of the soul, while "The Apology" focuses on Plato 's beloved mentor, Socrates, and his views on tur value of the soul. Both allegory and dialogue seek to stress the importance of the truth to caring for one 's self. The pursuit of the truth and the care of the self are intricately intertwined; one cannot do without the other. Additionally, both pieces challenge the reader from their complacency and forces them to re-evaluate their lives, calling for lives that better cultivate the soul and take care of the self. From
In book seven of ‘The Republic’, Plato presents possibly one of the most prominent metaphors in Western philosophy to date titled ‘Allegory of the Cave’.