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Analyzing Plato's allegory of the cave
Analyzing Plato's allegory of the cave
The review of plato's allegory of the cave
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Plato’s Allegory of the cave can be seen in many different ways. One of the ways we could look at it is by comparing it to the real world. According to Plato, the prisoners are kept in a cave, chained up facing the wall, not being able to move around or even turn their heads to look around. There is fire behind the prisoners that the prisoners cannot see; however, the fire creates shadows of objects which could be seen by the prisoners. Since the prisoners have been in the cave all their lives, they have no outside knowledge and they assume the shadows are real. Plato considered the prisoners to have little or no knowledge at all since they did not try to find out more or even try to understand what was going on. As these prisoners were taken
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
Plato was a distinguished man known for its highly intellectual theory concerning human’s perception. This particular reading emphasizes the point that what we recognize as real from birth is completely misleading based on our tainted understanding of reality, and that what we see and hear don’t necessarily ensure the truth and the actual knowledge. Even though Plato’s “Allegory of Cave” was written a long time ago, we can still relate it with the society today. For instance, we, the people, are the prisoners, and the shadow, is none other than the television and media, whose role has made such a huge impact in how we perceive things in life. The modern day television relates to the thought provoking, excellent, and captivating theory of Plato in its controlled audience, the misleading reality, and the enslaved addiction.
Appearance is what we perceive around us; it is sometimes known as the empirical, which means known through the senses. Reality is most commonly defined as all that exists regardless of whether it is perceived or not; in other words, it exists independently of anyone’s perception.The metaphysical problem of reality and appearance can be described as the difficulty of telling the objective from the subjective. One of the proboems of reality and appearance has already been illustrated by Plato, which is that reality is genuine as opposed to deceptive. He suggests a rationalist approach to answering this question relying on reasons that focused on our senses. Our sensory knowlege and experiences are our only perceptions of reality, but that can still mean that its not really there. All that us humans have are our own paradigms of what reality “really is” which is based upon a series of assumptions and beleifes that in turn, determines their views of reality.
Freedom in mind, freedom in nature, and freedom in subjectivity of individual are three kinds of freedoms. However, freedom should be expressed within the limits of reason and morality. Having freedom equals having the power to think, to speak, and to act without externally imposed restrains. As a matter of fact, finding freedom in order to live free is the common idea in Plato with "The Allegory of the Cave"; Henry David Thoreau with " Where I lived and What I lived for"; and Jean Paul Sartre with " Existentialism". Generally, Plato, Thoreau, and Sartre suggested that human life should be free. They differ in what that freedom is. Plato thinks it is found in the world of intellect, Thoreau thinks freedom is found in nature, and Sartre thinks freedom is found in subjectivity of individual.
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a symbol for the contrasts between ideas and what we perceive as reality. The Allegory of the Cave is that we are chained to a wall. Behind us is another wall with figures walking across it, behind that wall is a pit of fire. The firelight casts shadows upon the wall in front of those chained to the wall. Because we are chained to the wall we believe the figures are what they represent. Plato says there times when one tries to break away from the wall but others encourage him to join back the wall as he experiences what the world truly is. Because we are chained to the wall we are afraid of the unknown. But breaking free could change the perception about the world and feel truly free. Plato also argues that we are the cave slaves. We live in a world of shadows, where we don't see the reality of ideas. However, it is possible to climb out of the cave, to be released from our shackles but it’s difficult. And when we ( s...
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.
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 Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato described a group of people that have lived their lives confined to a cave, tied to a pole making them face a wall. On this wall you could only see shadows of what was going on behind you, and from that they misperceived shadows from reality. One day, one of the inhabitants broke free and was able to leave the cave, only to be shocked by what “true reality” was outside of the cave and what was different from the shadows he saw on the cave wall. He was so excited that he wanted to go back into the cave and basically enlightened the other prisoners about what he saw,
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?
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
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...
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.
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 ...
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
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.