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Analyze Plato's allegory of the cave
Analyze Plato's allegory of the cave
Plato's allegory of the cave summarized
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Truth is an objective in a person’s life in which a journey is taken to find the answer to their question or an identity of themselves or others. In Plato’s allegory of the cave The Republic VII, Plato discusses the steps that is needed to taken to find the real truth to one’s self. These theory created by the world famous philosopher can be related to many text and life on how truth is formed. Plato relates the Republic VII to a cave and how a man must step out the darkness of the cave and its many obstacles to find real truth. Plato’s steps in Republic VII are a part of Othello by William Shakespeare in which the main character Othello face obstacles finding the truth of his wife and his friend’s loyalty. These obstacles also include stereotypes which are discussed in “Don’t Let Your Stereotypes Warp Your Judgment” by Robert Heilbroner in which studies and are given about how stereotypes affect the image of others. In Othello to form the truth in which it follows the steps of Plato’s allegory of the cave to find the truth which is manipulation, stereotyping, breaking the bonds of manipulation/stereotypes and realizing real truth.
False truth is given by a manipulator and tries to keep the “prisoners” in the cave as a part of the process to finding real truth. Plato states it very clear the manipulators as the people who control the shadows that reflect false truth. This manipulator can be one’s self or a person who is externally manipulating you. Plato references these manipulators as puppeteers through this statement:”Imagine that along this path a low wall has been built, like the screen front of puppeteers above which they show their puppets.” (Plato). This is one part of the formation of the truth as being manipulated by ...
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... who keep the prisoners in the cave of darkness or false truth. But there is also other false truth that is created by themselves. These stereotypes clouds ones person reality. This is related to Othello and Iago’s relationship as Iago place many different manipulative ideas in Othello’s mind.
Works Cited
Heilbroner, Robert L. “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American Experience. Ed. Sara M. Blake and Janet Madden Orlando: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1993. 436-442.
Plato. “Republic VII.” Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy From Thales to Aristotle. Comp. and ed. S. Marc cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. 370-374
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York; Washington Square Press, 1993.
Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve. Plato Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
The first similarity between the cave theory and television is the fact that the audience is being controlled. In the essay, Plato describes the prisoners’ condition by stating how they “have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads”(868), and how the prisoners are being controlled by the puppeteers that are “passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall”(868). These descriptions offer us the vivid perception that the prisoners are being highly restrained by the puppeteers, both physically and intellectually; they couldn’t move, and they thought that the shadow was the reality. Just like the prisoners, w...
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.
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."
This paper contains 237 words of teacher’s comments. What one perceives is influenced by one’s environment. The setting and commentary surrounding events changes our perception of them. Any innocent gesture can be perceived in the wrong way with enough persuading from someone else. Even if someone has total faith in another person's innocence, they can be persuaded to doubt them through the twisting of events. Once just a small amount of doubt has been planted, it influences the way everything else is seen. This occurs throughout the play, Othello. In this play, Iago influences Othello's perception of events through speeches and lies, making him doubt Desdemona's fidelity. Iago uses his talent of manipulating events to exact his revenge on Othello. Iago's twisting of events in Othello's mind leads to the downfall of Othello as planned, but because he fails to twist Emilia's perception as well, he facilitates his own eventual downfall.
...Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
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
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print
Shakespeare, William. "Othello". The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespear. Othello. Dir. Grenblatt, Cohen, Howard, and Eisaman Maus. (second ed.) New York. 2008.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Philip M. Parker. [San Diego, Calif.]: ICON Classics, 2005. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
In "The Allegory of the Cave," prisoners in a cave are forced to watch shadows as people behind them are forced to accept these shadows as reality -- "To them... the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. One prisoner, however, is released, and stumbles into the real world, containing more depth and complexity than they had ever known. At first, the prisoner will be pained at the bright, piercing light, but will eventually recover. According to Plato, the freed prisoner is then obligated to return to the shadows of the cave, to inform the shackled prisoners left behind of the real world. The prisoners, however, will not believe the freed prisoner, and may even go as afra s to kill him for such "lies" contrary to their "reality." The pursuit of the truth is, therefor, a painstaking but rewarding process. According to Plato, the physical world is a world of sight, one that lacks meaning if left alone. Only those who manage to break into the sunlight from the cave will ascend to the intellectual world. The prisoners in the shadows only know of the dull physical world, while those who ascend into the sunlight learn of the spiritual world, and are exposed to the first hints of truth. The soul ascends upward into the realm of goodness and of the truth, where "... souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell.." The pursuit of goodness and of the truth, then, improves the soul, as the soul desires to be elevated to a higher state of knowledge and morality. Caring for the self and the soul involves freeing the shackles of the physical world and ascending to the "... world of knowledge... the universal author of all things beautiful and right... and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual..." The soul yearns to dwell in a world of morality and knowledge, and only the pursuit of
In Plato’s Allegory of The Cave Socrates explains that humans tend to not understand the true reality of their world. They believe that they understand what they are perceiving and sensing in the world, but in reality, they are just seeing the shadows of the true forms that make up the world. Socrates utilizes anecdotes to explain his theory on forms. The inclusion of a story to back up his theory helps the audience understand his points better, and generate more followers to his thinking. Additionally, Socrates uses examples of how his philosophies relate to our everyday life in order to provide more evidence to the reader. Although a counter claim isn’t explicitly stated in the Allegory, the reader could argue that for Plato’s program to
One of the biggest questions that humans have is “what is reality”. Plato suggests that, “ we are born in illusions,” (Plato) and that the truth is initially blinding. “The Myth of the Cave,” is a narrative story about the idea of reality, it is explored though an allegory about a man finding out the truth about reality coming from a life in the dark. They can only learn about true mainly through reason and truth. The story is told as a metaphor for what happens in the natural world and how people can be stuck in the dark about reality. Plato tells the story through the voice of Socrates, his mentor.