Plato, S Theory Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

740 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Plato's views on reality

Allegory of the cave The allegory of the cave is one of Plato’s many theories, probably one of his most known theories as well. This theory is based on the human perception. Plato would say that the knowledge gained through the senses is no more than your opinion but in order to have actual knowledge you have to obtain it through philosophical reasoning. In his theory, he separates people who think that their sensory knowledge it the truth and people who really see the truth.
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 …show more content…

The shadows seen on the cave wall are a truth to those people and Plato says that if you believe everything you see then you are just seeing a shadow of the real truth. The game the prisoners played while in the cave was interesting to me because it showed how anyone can believe one person is a master of nature when they have ‘knowledge’ of the world observed by senses. I also liked Plato’s feelings about the game they played, he felt that it showed how the master does not actually know the truth, and suggests that it is ridiculous to admire someone like this. The prisoner that had escaped can be seen as the philosopher because he or she seeks knowledge outside the cave (or outside the senses). The only thing that I found to represent itself in the story was the journey the prisoner went on to find beauty and wisdom. One very interesting element Plato added to this story was the return of the prisoner. At first I asked myself “why would the prisoner go back to the cave” but then I realized that it also represented something and that was that most people are scared to know what is real and would rather stick to what they know rather than going out of their comfort zone to possibly see something differently or to see the actual

Show More
Related

  • Plato and Bacon

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a story being told by Socrates to Plato’s brother, Glaucon. Socrates tells of prisoners in an underground cave who are made to look upon the front wall of the cave. To the rear of the prisoners, below the protection of the parapet, lie the puppeteers whom are casting the shadows on the wall in that the prisoners are perceiving reality. Once a prisoner is free, he's forced to look upon the fire and objects that once determined his perception of reality, and he so realizes these new pictures before of him are now the accepted forms of reality. Plato describes the vision of the real truth to be "aching" to the eyes of the prisoners, and the way they might naturally be inclined to going back and viewing what they need perpetually seen as a pleasing and painless acceptance of truth. This stage of thinking is noted as "belief."

    Read More

  • Comparing Plato And Aristotle

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this allegory the human condition is likened to being trapped in a cave facing the back wall only able to see shadows; unaware that there is anything else in the world. The world beyond though contains the truth of reality and acts as a higher plain of reality which is accessed in order to gain knowledge. One of these people though is set free and forced to climb a steep hill representing the struggle and effort it takes to gain knowledge and learn as a philosopher would. However it is also portrayed as a worthwhile act as the person freed now knows reality and not merely the shadows of it. The people remaining in the cave represent the ignorant, uneducated majority of society and these people, when the philosophically enlightened person returns, are unwilling to believe him and would rather cast him out of there world that accept his truth. This allegory displays Plato’s feelings about how his teacher, Socrates, had been treated for attempting to enlighten his pupils. It also though reveals Plato’s own feelings towards gaining knowledge which would have been inspired by his teacher. Plato was a transcendentalist meaning he believed that to understand truth we must transcend beyond this world into a higher reality where true concepts exist. In this reality beyond the senses the knowledge found is unchanging. This makes it necessary to use asceticism to find the truth. Plato uses Mathematics as the

    Read More

  • Allegory Of The Cave Essay

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    I think the prisoner is pulled out of the cave by the enlightened ones, the ones who have reached this essential wisdom They also might stand as deities asserting there power over the prisoner because according to Socrates Plato's teacher only a diety or auricle has the wisdom of the gods and as a result the beings that pulled the prisoner out of the cave and into the light must be deities seeking to grant humankind the wisdom they

    Read More

  • Exploring Change in The Allegory of the Cave, and The Myth of Sisyphus

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Allegory of the Cave is a parable that demonstrates how humans are afraid of change and what they do not know.  In this work, Plato suggests a situation in which men are living in an underground cave.  The one entrance is located near the top and there, a burning fire casts shadow.  The men of the cave are chained so that they can only see the wall and cannot turn around.  When objects pass by it creates a shadow on the wall.  The shadows are the only thing they can see and therefore is the only thing they know to exist (747).  Somehow one of them gets loose and wanders outside the cave (748).  When he gets out, he is astonished at what he finds.  He comes back in to tell the others about what he saw.  The other men think he is mad and plot to kill him (749).  This illustrates how fear, inherent in the primitive nature of man, only serves to promote his ignorance.

    Read More

  • Similarities in Plato's Allegory of the Cave and A Tale of Two Cities

    673 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato’s Allegory uses the metaphor of the cave and the outside world to show the light vs. dark theme. The cave is “the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world.” (P.3) When the prison...

    Read More

  • Parallels between The Movie, The Matrix and Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    2216 Words  | 5 Pages

    In conclusion, Plato's story of the cave brings up many philosophical points and most importantly, addresses the issue of society's role in our lives. To some degree, we are all influenced by the thoughts and actions of others; however, at the same time, we have the ability to question, draw our own conclusions, and ultimately make our own choices.

    Read More

  • Feed Knowledge In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    316 Words  | 1 Pages

    Plato starts the story by explaining a little bit about what it's like for the prisoners in the cave. Plato explains that the prisoners are deprived of a lot of knowledge because they can only see shadows made from the light of a fire. The next section of the story gets into what it is like for the prisoners when they are finally freed from the cave and experience the outside world. The newly-freed prisoners

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Plato's Cave Allegory

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Cave Allegory was Plato’s attempt to compare what he called “the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature”. Plato had another Greek philosopher by the name of Socrates describe a group of people who lived

    Read More

  • Plato's Allegory of a Cave, Wachowski's Matrix, and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time

    1562 Words  | 4 Pages

    Plato's Allegory of a Cave is a story about prisoners that are chained underground, who can not see anything except for shadows caste on a wall by a fire. The only thing that these prisoners can see is the shadows of people. Eventually, one of the prisoners breaks free of the chain and ventures out into the real world. In the real world the freed prisoner discovers that the shadows in the cave are created from light diverge off people. He recognizes there is a whole new world filled with light. The freed prisoner is very confused and blinded by the light so he decides to return to the cave. When the prisoner returns to the cave, he shares what he saw in the real world with the other prisoners. The remaining prisoners treat the freed prisoner like he is crazy and they tell the freed prisoner that the real world does not exist. The prisoners in the cave do not believe in the real world because the cave is all that they know exists.

    Read More

  • Plato And Francis Bacon And Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    To begin, Plato’s Allegory of the cave is a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon and its main purpose, as Plato states is to, “show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.”(Plato) The dialogue includes a group of prisoners who are captive in a cave and chained down, only with the ability to stare straight at a wall. This wall, with the help of a fire, walkway, and people carrying different artifacts and making sounds, create a shadow and false perception of what is real. This concept here is one of the fundamental issues that Plato brings up in the reading. “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” (Plato). These prisoners, being stuck in this cave their entire life have no other option but to believe what they see on the wall to be true. If they were to experience a real representation of the outside world they would find it implausible and hard to understand. “When any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up a...

    Read More

  • Plato's Allegory of the Cave: An Examination of Reality

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    Greek philosopher Plato studied the nature of reality and examined knowledge itself. In The Allegory of the Cave, Plato addresses human experience related to the human condition of ignorance and its restrictions on ability to distinguish “shadows” from reality. By creating a clear distinction between illusions and reality, Plato works to demonstrate the necessity of attaining enlightenment in order to properly navigate life. In order to sharpen this distinction, Plato uses vivid imagery that paints the contrasting worlds of illusion and reality and constantly reiterates the contrasting idea of ascent to an enlightened state to descent into darkness to clarify the difference between shadows and truth. His incorporation of numerous rhetorical

    Read More

  • Plato's Cave

    1131 Words  | 3 Pages

    The basic premise of Plato's allegory of the cave is to depict the nature of the human being, where true reality is hidden, false images and information are perceived as reality. In the allegory Plato tells a story about a man put on a Gnostics path. Prisoners seating in a cave with their legs and necks chained down since childhood, in such way that they cannot move or see each other, only look into the shadows on the wall in front of them; not realizing they have three-dimensional bodies. These images are of men and animals, carried by an unseen men on the background. Now imagine one of the prisoners is liberated into the light, the Gnostic path will become painful and difficult, but slowly his eyes will begin to accommodate what he sees and his fundamentalist view about the world will begin to change; he sees everything through an anarchic thinking and reasons. When he returns into the cave, his fellow prisoners will not recognize him or understand anything he says because he has develop a new senses and capability of perception. This is the representation of the human nature, we live in a cave with false perception of reality that we've been told since childhood, but we must realize that these present perception are incomplete.

    Read More

  • Allegory Of The Cave Essay

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "Allegory of the Cave" Plato's describes the journey, which individuals must embark on in order to achieve enlightenment. Plato depicts a comprehensive metaphor that aims to outline the disadvantages we face as a result of a lack of education. When analyzing the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ it's imperative to remember that there are two elements to the story. The first element is the fictional metaphor of the prisoners and the second element is the philosophical view in which the story is supposed to portray, therefore presenting us with the allegory itself.

    Read More

  • Does Perfection Exist?: Plato´s Theory of Forms

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato's Theory of Forms draws parallels to The Allegory of the Cave, highlighting the concept of human beings being ignorant to true perfection. In the writing Plato uses symbols to convey a veiled meaning. The philosopher says, “The prisoners s...

    Read More

  • Philosophy CPT: “The unexamined life is not worth living”

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato, a student of Socrates, in his book “The Republic” wrote an allegory known as “Plato's Cave”. In Plato's allegory humans are trapped within a dark cave where they can only catch glimpses of the world above through shadows on the wall.2 Plato is describing how the typical human is. They have little knowledge and what they think they know has very little basis in fact. He describes these people as prisoners, in his allegory, and they are only free when they gain knowledge of the world above the cave.

    Read More

More about Plato, S Theory Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Open Document