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The main ideas of Plato's allegory of cave
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The Black and White World “Allegory of the Cave”, by Plato, explains how reality is different for everyone. All of us do not have the same view of what reality really is. Most of us like to believe in what we see, like the shadows on the cave. We are like the prisoners, chained up from our feet to our necks. For example; in "The Giver", by Lois Lowry, the community selects jobs for each and every citizen. Jonas, the main character, was given an important job. He was the Receiver of Memory. The person that gives him memories is called the Giver. He gives Jonas memories from the past Givers/Receivers. The Giver and Jonas, in their society, see a different perspective of their world. The memories of pain, hatred and happiness were taken away from every citizen from the community. However, they are the only ones that see color in their world and know the truth behind the mask of their own world, while all the other people see the world as a plain and black-and –white world. The two worlds between the “Allegory of the cave” and “The Giver” are very similar. The giver represents the intellectual world. He had …show more content…
When the prisoner got out of the cave “he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners.” Plato says that the knowledgeable prisoner should “become happy on the change, and pity them?” The prisoner would share the truth with the others while the giver kept the truth or the “light” from the citizens. Another difference is that the receiver chose to know more about the truth and not stay in the perfect black and white world. In the cave, the escaped prisoner tried to tell the others about the real world, but they chose not to listen to him because they are so stuck into the knowledge that has been given to them, which makes them think that the knowledge that the escaped prisoner has is a
“Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you have been given.” said David Levithan. In her dystopian novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry is able to convey the same idea as this quote. In this book, people created the Community in which the members are in a supposedly safe and happy environment. The Elders choose Jonas, the main character, to be the next Receiver of Memory and his training helps him to experience the past and see the deep flaws in the Community.
Only one prisoner can understand the truth, but what about outside of the story. In The allegory of the Cave one prisoner is let free and forced up and is allowed to see what real life is like, and it is completely different from what he already knew. When the other prisoner’s see him, the other prisoner’s think he is delusional. This is similar to politicians switching parties or displaying opinions that differ from their party. The Allegory teaches a tremendously strong lesson, regardless of age, it can still be applied to modern day propaganda.
As he becomes accustom his new surroundings; he realizes life is not what he thought it was, instead his reality is wrong. He returns to the cave to tell the other prisoners the truth. They do not believe him and threaten to kill him; they do not want to be set free. The cave allegory refers to his leaving behind the impermanent, material world for the permanent intelligible world. The cave represents people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is the pinnacle of philosophy, many future philosophers based their own philosophies from Plato’s Allegory. A simple Allegory questioning truth and reality has also shaped current pop culture. The past shapes the future, it is surreal knowing how a single man from the past with his love for wisdom influenced modern films. The Allegory is a simple story that makes people question their truth and their morals in which they live by. The Allegory tells a story of a prisoner who has escaped the “fake” reality and has seen “truth”; the informed prisoner attempts to return to his fake world to enlighten other prisoners of their ignorance. This same plot concept can be seen in the movie The Truman Show.
Furthermore, when Plato writes to set free those in the den, he is moving on to the next stage of human growth: being a teenager. The prisoners in the cave are set free to wander and move about. This symbolizes the time in life where teenagers move away from their parents. After teens have been under their parent's supervision and confinement for years, they want to go out and learn new things on their own. "At first, when any of them is liberated and...
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
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.
In general, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Krishnamurti’s essay on Conditioned Minds are relevant and compatible within todays cultural values and beliefs. After reading these two essays I came to a conclusion that it is only our choice we live in a cave and shadows, or that we are afraid of what will they say. To go out beyond the cave and experience life for real, in my opinion it is people’s choice, and most of us have a chance to choose.
Inside the cave the only knowledge that you can experience is the knowledge that is already installed into your head. In the cave viewpoint “The truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the image.”(Plato 450) M This quote explains that everything that is viewed in the cave is only a shadow of the real thing. But, the outside of the cave is made up of real images that can be hurtful “He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world” (Plato 451). This quote explains how humans need to adjust to new knowledge. At first, the outside of the cave is defined as unreal, because you are in denial that there is more to the world than just your cave. When one realizes the actual things that are present outside the cave one will want to spread the word and tell the other prisoners. But, one will not spread the word because the other prisoners will not be open to the knowledge. They will see your viewpoint as being insane do to the fact that they have not been exposed to the
In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes the cave as very dark with chained people inside and a wall where they can only see shadow illusions, which they believe is reality. Outside the cave, there is “light” and “truth.” One chained person is released into the “light,” which is uncomfortable at first, because of how bright the “light” or “truth” is however, once he adjusts, he realizes the outer world is the “truth” or reality and the cave is a shadow of reality. He pities the ones in the cave, still lost in the darkness yet, when he tries to make them see reality, their ignorance overpowers them and they kill the enlightened one out of fear and confusion. This is the kind of society, full of puppet-handlers, the narrator Sylvia in “The Lesson” dwells in and the author, Toni Cade Bambara, depicts Sylvia as being freed from the chains of ignorant society. Bambara’s released prisoner, Miss Moore, is the one to free Sylvia and the other chained prisoners and exposes them to the “light,” which is the unequal distribution of wealth and the “truth,” which is educating youth on economic inequality so the freed prisoners can learn to change their society’s shadow of reality.
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
The Allegory of the Cave is a hypothetical scenario, described by Plato, in the form of a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon. Socrates describes the picture of prisoners living in a cave where they have no source of light except for the one provided by the fire. There since birth, the prisoners live in a fixed position, staring at the shadows that are projected onto the walls. The puppeteers walk along a path behind the chained prisoners, each holding different objects. They live in a state of constant prediction, waiting for future shadows to be cast. As the objects reflect into shadows, the prisoners guess what the projections are and what they represent. The conversation reveals Socrates thoughts of human ignorance and the imprisonment of humans, trapped in society. It covers the search for truth and the desire to share it with others and free them from the bondage of ignorance. Socrates metaphor can represent education, religion, and our interaction with society. The prisoners in the cave lack education and you can
My understanding of the cave allegory is someone who has lived his life in confinement; the only life he has ever known. Isolated from the outside world, everything that he experiences is a false reality. He sees things projected on the wall and he thinks they are real, when in fact, they are illusions. Once he is torn away from his environment, he is frightened of what he is now experiencing. As his senses awaken, he begins to see and experience the beauty all around him. He now realizes that this is how life is truly meant to live and he must go back and share his discovery with the others. However, they are not eager to leave their familiar surroundings. Upon returning to the cave, he has a hard time adjusting to his previous environment, He now knows all that he previously thought was
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" presents a vision of humans as slaves chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of things on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows are the only "reality" the slaves know. Plato argues that there is a basic flaw in how we humans mistake our limited perceptions as reality, truth and goodness. The allegory reveals how that flaw affects our education, our spirituality and our politics.
The circumstances that are described by Plato have a metaphorical meaning to them. The allegory attacks individuals who rely solely upon; or in other words are slaves to their senses. The shackles and chains that bind the prisoners are in fact their senses .In Plato’s theory, the cave itself represents the individuals whom believe that knowledge derives from what we can hear and see in the world around us; in other words, empirical knowledge. The cave attempts to show that believers of empirical knowledge are essentially ...