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Analysis of plato's allegory of the cave
Analysis of plato's allegory of the cave
Analysis of plato's allegory of the cave
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After graduation of my high school, I’ve decided not to attend college. I spent over three months preparing for college admissions. Over three months of studying for the SAT and writing essays for colleges. But, all this hard work was blown away in just a week. The week before the May 1st, the decision day, I had made my decision not to attend college. I have decided to return to my country and start working. Of course, there was a strong disagreement from my parents, but I didn’t hesitate. For the past years, I have worked in many different kinds of places and I have faced the true reality. This made me want to attend college and brought me to Concordia College. In the Plato’s allegory of “ The Cave” the Shadow refers to the illusion of the reality. People in the cave believed that the shadow of an objection was a true form. They had limited knowledge because they only believed in the shadow. When I first saw all the accepted college expenses, I was horrified. The 4 years of my college tuition were worthy of an enormous house in Las Vegas. I immediately thought College is a waste of money and time. To be honest, I didn’t wanted to study no more. Twelve years of studying was …show more content…
Chain symbolizes restriction. People in the cave were restricted by the chains. Just like the people in the cave, there were restrictions on me. For example, the college expense is part of the reason that I decided to not to go to college. College tuition could also be pain for other students. In the United States, high ranked universities are considered to be more expensive than any others’. People cannot attend if they don’t have money to afford. If I master my education, I would have broad open opportunities that would be available. Now days, education seems to be mandatory. Our society seems to be packed with limitations. That is also why I decided to attend Concordia College to absorb knowledge and impact on our
Plato’s allegory of the cave include the light, the objects, and the shadows. The novel named “The Picture of Dorian Grey” contains a purposeful meaning for each key component. In the cave, individuals are shown the shadows of puppets which they consider their reality; however, it’s only a “fake” representation of reality. Just as Dorian Grey’s beautiful appearance was merely a “fake” copy of himself when he was pure and innocent, it never disappeared because of his immortality. Yet, when the individuals have been shown the objects, they are skeptical about the “true” reality, not knowing that they are seeing the truth behind the shadows. Similar to the picture of Dorian Grey, which portrayed his ghastly appearance, contained his true-self
But as his eyes gradually began to focus to the light, he would begin to see images more clearly. The light enables the prisoner to see the true image and not just the shadow of the image. If this prisoner was to go back to the cave, he would find that it would be impossible to conform back to his old world. At first he would not be able to identify shadows because his eyes would not yet be adjusted to the darkness in the cave. If the returning prisoner were to tell the other prisoners about the light and that their shadows were not real images, they would not believe him and would accuse him of trying to disrupt their way of life. Finally, since the prisoner could no longer fit in, the others would be forced to kill him. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a symbol for the contrasts between ideas and what humans perceive as reality. For example, Plato would argue that ideas go beyond the physical world. Think of a cup. That
For most Americans, the goal of attending college is drilled into our minds at a young age. It seems to be one of the ultimate dreams for parents to have their child grow up and attend the best university in the country. Once students near the end of their high school education, college is a major conversation topic. The pressure to choose the college of best fit can be daunting. Do I want a large university or a smaller technical school? Do they have my major? How about on-campus housing? How costly are the schools? Am I too close to home? Or too far? So many questions, many I did not always know the answers to when asked. According to The College Board, there are almost four thousand colleges to choose from around the world. So, how do you
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is meant to represent knowledge we wish to seek. In order to obtain true knowledge we first need to escape what we think we already know, sense experience. The Cave represents society, the true reality in which we dwell on. The Sunlight when the prisoner is being released represents truth and new knowledge that is being aquired. It helped him see the world clearly for what it really is, instead of being in the darkness of the cave seeing the shadows casted by the fire behind him. The prisoners in the Cave represent common humans in society, who are ignorant and only have knowledge in what they want to know and nothing beyond that. The shadows represent what we perceive. We accept appearance for reality. For example
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, presented in The Republic, is one of the most famous extended metaphors in the history of philosophy. In the scenario, which Plato attributes to Socrates, a group of people are chained to a cave wall. They have been in this position all their lives and they can only see in one direction, toward the back of the cave. On the wall they see shadowy images being reflected in front of them. Since these people cannot turn their heads to see what makes the shadows, the chained people assume the shadows are all there is to reality. When one of the prisoners is released, he must be forced to turn around. The prisoner sees the shadows being projected on the wall are, in fact, created by an enormous fire at the mouth of the
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
Plato's Allegory of the Cave, presents Socrates instructing one of his students to imagine that there was a cave that was totally dark, except from the light that comes from the entrance and from a fire. The student was instructed then to imagine that the inhabitants of the cave have their necks and legs chained to the wall, impossible for the inhabitants to move. The people who control the cave place objects in front of the fire so that the inhabitants of the cave only see the shadows of the objects that the people want them to see. The chained inhabitants never get to see the real objects, only the distorted images of the objects. Furthermore, the inhabitants of the cave perceive the distorted objects as real, not the actual objects as being real. Socrates, then tells the student to imagine if the inhabitants of the cave were suddenly freed of the chains. The inhabitants would be in agonizing pain, for the first time in their lives the individuals can stand and move their heads. Their bodies are not used to being in such positions. The inhabitants of the cave, now are able to behold the light glimmering outside the cave. The inhabitants who were only adapted to only darkness, perceive light. The light stabs at their eyes, it is too painful for these individ...
Plato does a great job in incorporating the Theory of forms into the Allegory of the cave. With this intention he demonstrated it in an unclear way but it was visible. The trapped people in the cave represent us (regular people) who can only see the shadows of the true forms. The outside world of the cave represents the belief where the true form of sensible objects lie. This is due to the fact that the pioneer believed that the sun is the reason for everything around him , the flowers , the trees and the grass. Lastly , the sun represents the source of good because it is the main source of all
To be blunt, I applied to attend CC because I horsed around my freshman, sophomore and partially my junior year. I didn’t try to get any foreign language credits, algebra 2, or prep for college at all. I was focused on passing well enough not to get grounded. Now that I’m so close to graduation I am seeing where I went wrong with that method, and I want to be a Veterinarian. To be this, I need to have those credits to attend the university I want to, and I also need a stronger transcript. I am hoping that by attending CC I can strengthen these things and work to be a better student.
The saying goes that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Perhaps it is fitting, then, that in his Allegory of the Cave, Plato uses the image of a cave to illustrate the effects of education on the human soul and how the symbolism represented in the allegory ties in to a broader discussion of one of Plato’s main philosophical ideas, the Theory of Forms. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato (who is speaking as Socrates to one of his students, Glaucon) asks us to imagine an underground cave in which a group of prisoners have lived since birth. The prisoners are chained to the ground and are positioned in such a way that they can only stare at the cave wall in front of them. Thus, the prisoners’ world has been reduced to a world of darkness, and the only thing that is real to them is the shadows and echoes of passersby as they walk past the mouth of the cave. But, Socrates goes on to say, the reality that the prisoners perceive is a false one; it is only by being dragged
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, there are prisoners kept in a cave. These prisoners have no exposure to the outside world. They are chained up to chairs in the cave and only have a huge blank wall to stare at. The guards in the cave make shadows on the wall by holding up objects in front of the fire. The shadows produced by the object show the prisoners a little bit of what the outside world looks like. They get to see the outline of the object that they are shown and have to assume that the shadows are perfect representations of what it actually looks like in the real world. The prisoners don't get to have their own ideas of what the world is like. They are ...
The dark cave symbolically suggests the contemporary world of ignorance and the chained people symbolize ignorant people in this ignorant world. The raised wall symbolizes the limitation of our thinking and the shadow symbolically suggest the world of sensory perception which Plato considers an illusion. In his opinion, the appearance is false and reality is somewhere, which we cannot see. Plato as an ideal philosopher says that the appearing world is just the imitation or photocopy of the real world. The shadows represent such photocopy and, the reality is possible to know with the spiritual knowledge. The chains symbolize our limitation in this material world so that we cannot know the reality to know reality; we have to break the material world. The outer world of the light symbolically suggests the world of spiritual reality, which we achieve by breaking the chains that are used to tie us. The dazzling of our eyes for the first time symbolizes difficulty of denies the material world. The second time dazzling of the eyes symbolizes our difficulty to accept ignorance after knowing the reality. Hence, in allegory of the cave Plato has given a criticism over our limited existence in the material
According to The Atlantic during the year of 2013-14, 82% of high school seniors graduated. In 2013, 66% of high school seniors enrolled into college immediately after high school. There are lots of people that go to college, not as many people go when they can’t afford to attend college and as for the 3 billion poor people out there in the world not many may attend. It’s not even about the money, some just don’t have the time and have to get a job right out of high school to care for their family.
Last Thursday’s class was a reminder that poverty can be a constant cycle. One specific example was about “day of” lenders, who provide money up front with extremely high interest rates knowing the debtor could potentially be unable to repay their debts. In this case penalty charges can keep increasing the amount of money one owes and simultaneously start to dig a deeper and deeper hole. This example felt all too real, because as a student it almost seems impossible to start off life after college without having to take out some type of loan(s). It could be money for a vehicle all the way to buying a home, but either way you need to be able to pay off your debt by finding a job(s) with a wage that can. I hope to never find myself in a
When you think of college, you don’t question if it is a good or bad investment for starting your future. Most people would say that college is the best decision you will ever make, but Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill, estimate the rate of return to education in “Should Everyone Go to College?” Two important factors to consider when thinking about your college career include the type of institution you want to attend and the field of study you are going into. Not all people have the same college experience and many college students get degrees that have low average income earnings.