Plato is a highly educated Philosopher who was taught by Socrates. Plato writes an article regarding the obliviousness society holds towards education and knowledge. He constructs his argument by using an allegory. Using this method causes his article to be more realistic, by taking a complex story and making it simpler causes the reader to have a better understanding in a metaphoric way. In this allegory he uses symbolism and perception quiet often to relay his message on “how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened” (Plato 449). Within this construction he also uses dialogue causing his argument to be a conversation between Socrates and one of his students, Glaucon. In order for Plato to explain his point he uses symbolism to represent what he really trying to put forth. By using symbolism he causes the story line to flow more within his allegory. He takes into account what everything represents and broadens it. The Cave that people are chained in represents the ignorance that people are living in when it comes to gaining new knowledge. The people in cave “have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot …show more content…
This analogy is used to show two different perceptions, the people in the cave and the people outside of the cave. It is as if the people in the cave do not want to come out said to be that “men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes, and that it was better not to even [consider] ascending”(453). Which implies that not only do the people in the cave want to stay there but they also shun those that come out and try to bring back what they have learned. By using symbolism and perception, Plato paints a picture for us to understand the way people carry their ignorance and the way people view truthful knowledge. In this article “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato recreates the world we live in regarding the people whom believe in empirical knowledge and those that do
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 “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato is demonstrating his belief and theory about what peoples mindset concerning old and new ideas through a metaphor. He use Aristotelian techniques to build the base and strength of his essay.
The irrational concept of the education has been influenced moral principles concerning what is good for a society as well as for an individual; however, the understanding of the intrinsic nature of the education removes the darkness of beliefs, which Plato calls prisoners’ shadows in his writing The Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates. Although “The Plato’s Allegory of the Cave” was written thousands of years ago, Plato’s depiction of the true education is a wakeup call for our humanity to admit the acquisition of knowledge with circumspection. The truth often relies on a mistaking understanding of sight or shadow according to Plato; the truth regularly relies on prejudice which makes an individual a prisoner, and the discovery of new truth often encounters hostility. A close analysis of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave allows us to view the education as not a way to transfer knowledge, but a way to transform
In his famous “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes the journey to knowledge and truth, explaining how we come to know reality and why it is that some people are unable to attain true knowledge. In this essay I will be unfolding Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and explaining the prisoner’s journey from darkness (ignorance) to enlightenment (truth), explaining the philosophical view on reality versus belief and the process someone undergoes to achieve enlightenment.
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.
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.
The Cave Allegory was Plato’s attempt to compare what he called “the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature”. Plato had another Greek philosopher by the name of Socrates describe a group of people who lived
In The Republic, Plato presents the relationship of the Divided Line and the Allegory of the Cave in connection to his epistemology and metaphysics. Throughout the Republic he discusses his beliefs on many topics using examples that express his ideas more thoroughly. He is able to convey very complex beliefs through his examples of the Divided Line and Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s epistemology depicts his idea of the Divided Line which is a hierarchy where we discover how one obtains knowledge and the Allegory of the Cave relates to Plato’s metaphysics by representing how one is ignorant/blinded at the lowest level but as they move up in the Divided Line, they are able to reach enlightenment through the knowledge of the truth.
The last idea that Plato connects to these two writers is about ones perspective of life. Throughout "Learning to Read and Write" Fredrick Douglas see everything from a slaves perspective. Instead of being handed an education he has to work hard for it, so he grows to appreciated education much more than the ones that didn’t have to work for it. As well he starts to feel that being able to read and write is more of a curse for him than anyone else
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
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
he main theme of Plato’s allegory of the cave is that we humans tend not to understand the true reality of our world. We think that we understand what we are looking at and sensing in our world, but we really just perceive shadows of the true forms of the things that make up the world.
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 ...
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave shows the process in which he believed Socrates went through to obtain these facts. We start off in a cave where all we know are the shadows on the wall, that we believe are our reality. We think we are enlightened because we believe to understand the world we live in, however, that’s not the case. We’re comfortable only knowing what we know, and nothing beyond that. Socrates shows this by asking Euthyphro questions about the definition of piety, only for Euthyphro to realize that he does not have an answer. People only like to know everything only enough to live. Things are taught to us in a specific way to help us view things, such as Step one, in the cave. Step two, is a painful process where cognitive dissonance happens, where we must obliterate older ways of thinking and revise the way we view the entire world. This is often painful or uncomfortable. This is shown when Euthyphro gets a bit agitated at Socrates’s constant barrage of questioning. Step three, is when we begin this process stepping out of the cave. We see this when Socrates and Euthyphro both keep revising and editing their definitions of what they believe piety is. Step four, is when we begin to realize fundaments and reason/see how things connect and relate. This is where they both realize they have no understanding of what the definition of piety is and accept it. Step five, when