The Allegory of the Cave by Socrates and The Republic of Plato

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Recommended: Strengths and Weaknesses of Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” essay

In my paper I will address the interdisciplinary relationship between the Western philosopher Socrates’ in the Allegory of the Cave, an excerpt from Republic by Plato, and the Eastern mystic Paramhamsa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. I will examine Yogananda’s Autobiography through the Platonic monocle and reason on why there are flaws in the allegory and how that can be corrected by adopting bifocals that combines both. The objective of this is to inspect, delve, and widen Socrates’s perspective that there are extra factors that relate to the steps that lead up to the light. In the allegory, Socrates claims that the prisoners “have their legs and necks in restrains, so that they’re held in place and look only to the front” (Plato, and Joe Sachs 210). The claim is defective in explaining whether the prisoners are compliant and oblivious of such enslavement, and are awaiting a rescuer, or some of them are aware of the shadows but are waiting to be released from delusion. Does man bound in chains depend on the spontaneous compassion from someone present in the light, or are there more components that lead someone to be merciful, to free prisoners “and” to point them to the light? To direct this corollary on an accurate path, I will adopt excerpts from the Autobiography to candidly further the campaign of the cave.
To accumulate an improved understanding of Socrates’ cave, I shall first delve into my interpretation of the Autobiography to show the viewer on how this relates to the apologue. The Autobiography begins with his early life, but for the purposes of this essay I shall skip to the time that begins with his high school years. Young Mukunda, a nervous student, frets about the final examinations as he picks up a textbook i...

... middle of paper ...

... The mystic directs his own destiny and makes himself an example, but the philosopher directs others destiny and makes themselves the example.

Works Cited

Farge, Emile I. "Thomas Merton And Paramahansa Yogananda: Two Prayerful Mergings Of Cult And Culture." Merton Annual 20.(2007): 164-184. Religion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
Farge, Emile J. "Going East With Merton: Forty Years Later -- And Coming West With Paramahansa Yogananda Today." Cross Currents 59.1 (2009): 49-68. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 2 Apr. 2014
Morris, T. F. "Plato's Cave." South African Journal Of Philosophy 28.4 (2009): 415-432. Religion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
Plato, and Joe Sachs. Republic. Newburyport, MA: Focus Pub., 2007. Print.
Yogananda, Paramhamsa. Autobiography of a Yogi. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971. Print.

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