Long ago, caves were the only shelter available to man. There was no choice but to live in them. They provided warmth and protection. Living in a cave in today’s society would be torturous. Depression plays a role in society today, and people live with it non-stop. Depression is isolating and leaves one in the darkness. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” helps show how a person is captured by depression, living inside their own mind just like the cave, and how to see the light of escaping depression is like the sun. It is possible for a man to be captured by an inanimate object. Depression itself is very much its own being. Being held prisoner by the hands of another man, and being held by one’s self are immensely different. In Plato’s …show more content…
One does not think of themselves as a normal person when they are sick. They see light but refuse to go near because it is scary and new. Plato says in his story,
And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? (WT, 202) This quote is asking if a person who is shown the light will be able to go straight to it instead of turning away. If anyone were to live in a cave chained down for many years they would be very afraid of what was on the outside. The Sun will be the first thing to be seen by anyone who escapes the cave. Just like the sun, the light from freeing one’s self from their own mind will be the first thing seen. Everything outside anyone’s comfort zone is scary. The first reaction of any scared person is to run. The fear of the unknown is well-known phobia around the world. In order for someone to let the light in and see the sun, they must keep their mind open and explore the world for themselves. Living in a cave, being a slave to their captor is no life for a human. It is cruel to keep anyone undeserving locked up in their own personal cell. The key to leaving the cave, and being successful is to see things for one’s self. Breaking free from the chains, and refusing
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The world is a scary place, there are many ways to be enslaved by society. A lot of them actually involve interaction with other people, when depression is solely one person. A fight against one’s self is a much harder feat to accomplish than fighting against someone else. One must be able to find the light for themselves and break free of the chains that they put themselves in. It takes time for anyone to find the courage to stop listening to their captor and to live life experiencing the world and what it has to offer. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” will help anyone with depression realize they do not have to be captured by darkness, live inside a cave made by their mind, and show anyone with darkness the light inside. This story will help anyone living inside their own cave escape, and be
Throughout Plato 's story "The Allegory of the cave" men are stuck in this cave with their backs turned away from the light, until one day a man turns towards the light and learns for himself what the light is about. The man than explores and begins to educate himself on everything and anything, he then tries to take everything he has learned back down to the cave to get his fellow cave members to step out and learn what the light is all about. The metaphor that Plato 's places in this story is how the cave is represents the human mind and the light represents the understanding of life
In Plato’s, “The Allegory of the Cave” he is telling a story about Socrates and a conversation with Glaucon, Plato’s brother. In this story Socrates tells Glaucon of a cave, “Behold! Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and 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” (Plato). The purpose of the cave which Socrates describes is to show that we as human beings are blind. We don’t expand our knowledge or test our beliefs. We sit with chains around our legs and necks and don’t try to test our boundaries. We are all
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
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 Book VII of The Republic, Plato tells a story entitled "The Allegory Of The Cave." He begins the story by describing a dark underground cave where a group of people are sitting in one long row with their backs to the cave's entrance. Chained to their chairs from an early age, all the humans can see is the distant cave wall in from of them. Their view of reality is soley based upon this limited view of the cave which but is a poor copy of the real world.
Plato’s cave had chained prisoners and that was the only life they ever knew. They couldn’t move their heads, and the only objects they could see from the outside world were the casted shadows created by the fire. They saw the truth from the shadows, but they were distorted. What they were seeing was only one side of the truth, not the whole thing. When one of the prisoners was free to go, he was forced to be dragged out of the cave. It
As people, we tend to believe everything we see. Do we ever take the time to stop and think about what is around us? Is it reality, or are we being deceived? Reality is not necessarily what is in front of us, or what is presented to us. The environment that we are placed or brought up has a great impact on what we perceive to be the truth or perceive to be reality. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is one of the most significant attempts to explain the nature of reality. The cave represents the prisoners, also known as the people. They are trapped inside of a cave. They are presented with shadows of figures, and they perceive that to be reality. The cave can be used as a
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 the allegory, a slave is then brought out of the cave, in what Plato refers to as "he ascent of the soul into the intellectual world" (Jacobus 319). Once out of the cave the slave discovers that what he thought was real is not. He learns to comprehend all of these new images as real and true. Since he has been in the dark, both literally and metaphorically, the light blinds him.
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
To sum up, Plato’s allegory of cave depicts the human condition, each of us is a prisoner chained down with distorted illusion of reality. To gain individual autonomy one must awaken the unconsciousness, we must kill our imperfection and liberate one’s senses. We cannot accomplish individual autonomy by watching what’s on the screen, but rather using our own consciousness, begin a Gnostic path, and enlightened each other, hence we can build our own philosophical ideologies and get out of the ignorance, that is the cave.
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a representation of the normal human behavior as well as the circumstances we presently encounter on a day-to-day basis. The Allegory of the Cave symbolically describes our circumstances as human beings in today’s world. Plato uses a number of key elements to depict the image of the human condition. Plato's images contain relatable ideas in regards to society that are related to my everyday life. By reading Plato I have personally begun to expand my though process and have learned not to rely solely on my senses. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave brings philosophy’s teachings to the forefront and makes it easy for us readers to understand what philosophy is trying to teach us.
In the story “Allegory Of The Cave” it shows a life lesson on how individuals can act stubborn in the world because they are not educated or aware of certain artifacts. In this essay i will give you examples of how real life situations relate to the story “Allegory Of The Cave”. In Plato’s story “Allegory Of the Cave” there are a group of prisoners that have been chained in a dark cave their whole life not being able to turn back at all. The only contact they have with the outside world is seeing the shadows of the things that pass behind them. Then one prisoner becomes free and is able to explore the outside world. When the freed prisoner steps outside for the first time in his life the beaming sun blinds him but then gets used to the sun
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?
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.