Analysis Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Written more than 2000 years ago, The Republic is one of Plato’s most influential and widely read works in the whole of western philosophy . Consisting of a series of ten books and contained within Book VII is the Allegory of the Cave, one of his best known works to emerge. The point of the allegory aims to conceive knowledge as a sort of illumination; Plato portrays the process of education as an ascent from darkness into light. This theory of knowledge still applies to events in our lives today, just as Plato directed it to the people of his time.

The theory presented in the Cave posits that the path to knowledge is much like people being chained to a cave wall, unable to move and being forced to watch a shadow play with puppets and other objects. Behind the chained people are other people moving those puppets and objects around in front of a large fire, which is behind them and much further back from the fire is the entrance to the cave, leading outside. Plato asks what would happen if a person were set free and forced to look at all the objects, the other people, the fire and, ultimately, the world outside the cave in direct sunlight. Would the freed prisoner believe that the now clear objects in the sun are as real as what they saw in the shadows of the cave?

Plato is dramatizing the idea by setting forth the revelation between the sensible and the intelligible so as to highlight the far greater attractiveness of the latter . The idea behind the concept being what we think we know (opinion) and what we will learn and eventually know (knowledge). An example of this is stereotyping a person whom you have never met; eventually after you have talked to them to ascertain a knowledgeable amount of information about themselves, you...

... middle of paper ...

...ead of true knowledge. It is the function of education to lead people out of the cave into the world of light; education is also dependent upon the person who is willing to partake in the acquirement of knowledge. “The conversion of the soul,” says Plato, is “not to put power of sight in the soul’s eye, which already has it, but to insure that, instead of looking in the wrong direction, it is turned the way it ought to be.”

The Allegory of the Cave is one of Plato’s most enduring and important works. It brings forth the idea that knowledge, amongst all else, will bring enlightenment to all individuals who are willing to except ideas beyond their own opinions. In much of this allegory, modern context can be used in bringing knowledge to the people now as it was used then. It will continue to inspire future generations with its theory of knowledge and intelligence.