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An essay on Plato's allegory of the cave and its philosophical importance
Allegory of the cave by plato and its importance
Allegory of the cave by plato and its importance
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Plato defines wisdom as the constant pursuit of knowledge in his dialogue The Republic Plato illustrates his idea of forms through an analogy, the allegory of the cave. In this dialogue, Plato exemplifies wisdom and inadvertently creates an analogy that is applicable to modern day Christianity. In Plato 's allegory, there are many examples of individuals who display the characteristics of one he would presume wise. In his allegory, there are two groups of people; those who are in the cave and those who are outside the cave. The cave represents the common people and their lack of virtuous wisdom. Those who are in the cave are seeing the shadows, but they do not believe them to be shadows. Those in the cave believe the shadows to be the actual objects. The lights and the world beyond the cave represents knowledge and intellectualism. In the …show more content…
In this application of the allegory, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior are symbolic of those who have ascended from the cave. Those who have not accepted this represent those inside the cave; the cave symbolizes life in the shadows, unaware of God 's love. Much like Plato 's concept of wisdom and the wise, Christians must be diligent and steadfast in the pursuit of God 's heart. "[T]hey must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good…" Secondly, Christians must delight in evangelism as wise men must support those striving for virtuous wisdom. Being imperfect sinners, it can be easy to delight in the failure of others, especially if we already harbor ill feelings for them. However, as Christians we are called to love one another. Christians are called to take joy in the building of the body of Christ. God reprimands us Christians for taking pleasure in such activities just as Plato reprimands the man who claims to be wise who do the
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 Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” he suggests that there are two different forms of vision, a “mind’s eye” and a “bodily eye.” The “bodily eye” is a metaphor for the senses. While inside the cave, the prisoners function only with this eye. The “mind’s eye” is a higher level of thinking, and is mobilized only when the prisoner is released into the outside world. This eye does not exist within the cave; it only exists in the real, perfect world.
Consequently, In Plato's Euthyphro, our acquaintance with Socrates is immensely beneficial to society, as we obtain awareness on such an innovative method of achieving intuition. The Socratic approach is now a fundamental approach implemented in daily conversation in society Furthermore, not only is Socrates is able to verify that the true seekers are the wise; he also validates the notion that the answers to many questions are merely questions. Simply because, life is so debate that certain subjects begin to intertwine. To sum up, Plato's Euthyphro is extremely indicative of this Socratic irony, for the reason being that: Socrates's portrays a sense of intellectual humility.
The allegory tells of a person who is put into a cave at infancy and knows nothing except for the shadows that the bypassers project onto the wall. The person is blind to the knowledge of what is out “there” much like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. Jay is stuck in a romantic fantasy, which he devotes his life to. He often refers to a light he stares at across the bay. This light symbolizes the step that Jay needs to overcome in order to escape from his darkness and enter into the “light” of knowledge and understanding of his fantasy. If one, such as Jay, dwells in the presence of knowledge but refuses to gain it, then no good may be done.
What is truly real, and what is not? This question is one which has been pondered deeply throughout human history, and it seemingly has no definitive answer. To understand what is truly a part of reality, and what isn’t, may be an impossible feat. However, two famous works created by humans from two distant time periods attempt to dissect and analyze this philosophical question. The first, The Allegory of the Cave, was written by the great Greek philosopher, Plato, who was born in 428 B.C. in Athens, Greece. The Allegory of the Cave is a piece of a larger work of Plato’s, The Republic, which is a collection of works concerning political philosophy. The Republic is his most famous work and what he is best known for in today’s world. The second
One of the main points of Plato’s philosophy was that he believed that people should not so easily trust their senses. In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato argues that what we perceive of the world through our sense does not give us the entire picture of what is really there. He states that what we can see is only shadows of what is true, but since we are born believing what we see, we don’t know that there is anything missing at all. Plato believed that in the “knowable realm”, the form of the good, the ultimate truth, is the last thing that we can see, which requires more effort that simply perceiving it. This ultimate truth can only be found through being able to not only perceive, but to be dragged out of the cave, or to be able to think. He likely believed this because through education, he felt that there was an ordering occurring in the mind that allowed for thoughts to become more focused, and clearer. As these thoughts became clearer, s...
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.
In this allegory, the depictions of humans as they are chained, their only knowledge of the world is what is seen inside the cave. Plato considers what would happen to people should they embrace the concepts of philosophy, become enlightened by it, and see things as they truly are. As we have mentioned in class, Plato’s theory did not only present itself in his allegory, but also in the Wachowski brothers’ hit film, The Matrix. In the film, the protagonist, Neo, suffers from a similar difficulty of adapting to reality, or the truth, which we will see later on. In order to understand Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, one must consider how Plato’s use of symbols to explain what true knowledge (or enlightenment) really is along with the comparisons to the Wachowski brothers’ film, The Matrix.
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.
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 the essay “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato addresses how humans generally do not pursue knowledge. Most humans are satisfied with what they already know and do not want to expand their knowledge. Plato uses simple examples to help the reader understand his logic on why humans do not expand their knowledge.
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?
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.
The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He sees it as what happens when someone is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must "go back into the cave" or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power struggles. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or are slaves to their senses. The chains that bind the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the details of the cave into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the cave? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our soul's ascent to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellect's world of opinion. Both were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to "see" things that are not real, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher understanding the world "abstract Reality" or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand abstract reality requires the understanding of mathematics and finally the forms or the Ideals of all things (the world outside the cave). But our understanding of the physical world is mirrored in our minds by our ways of thinking. First comes imagination (Socrates thought little of creativity), then our unfounded but real beliefs. Opinion gives way to knowledge through reasoning (learned though mathematics). Finally, the realization of the forms is mirrored by the level of Understanding in the Ways of Thinking. The key to the struggle for knowledge is the reasoning skills acquired through mathematics as they are applied to understanding ourselves. The shadows on the cave wall change continually and are of little worth, but the reality out side the cave never changes and that makes it important.
In "Allegory of the Cave" Plato's describes the journey, which individuals must embark on in order to achieve enlightenment. Plato depicts a comprehensive metaphor that aims to outline the disadvantages we face as a result of a lack of education. When analyzing the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ it's imperative to remember that there are two elements to the story. The first element is the fictional metaphor of the prisoners and the second element is the philosophical view in which the story is supposed to portray, therefore presenting us with the allegory itself.