Perspective always has been and always will be a factor that can make or break one's life. How people choose to look at things in life is entirely up to them. A favorite quote of mine by Charles Swindoll goes a little something like this, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” This is a powerful quote that shows the importance of perspective. Another example of the importance of perspective would be in Plato's Allegory of the Cave in which there is a shared perspective and worldview among a group of people based on their shared environment and experiences. When one of their group is exposed to a new environment and new experiences, however, his understanding of reality no longer matches theirs and they want to attack …show more content…
In the case of Plato's allegory it can be inferred that all of the prisoners’ mentality is the same or at least similar because of their shared environment and the conditions that exist in it. It could also be said that the prisoners’ perspectives are the same about life, the world, and the way life seems to work. The darkness of the cave and the shadows on the wall are all the prisoners have ever known. It is not anyone's fault that the prisoners’ perspectives are false and based on blindness, a lack of understanding, and a lack of knowledge about the …show more content…
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the prisoners who remain in the bondage of the cave are content with their meaningless existence and are too stubborn to change their perspective. The prisoner who is freed is content with his new perspective of the world after learning the truth and accepting that his old perspective and view was not true. Sadly, the other prisoners in the cave are too stubborn to accept the truth. As long as they truly believe in their reality and their perspective, then they will be content. It seems people truly “Can’t miss what they never
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, shows the contrast between sense experience and rationalism. The story explains that in the cave where some people have known nothing of the outside world and can only comprehend what they see based on what little they do know of their cave. The people have come to the conclusion what the shapes represent and what causes them and believe it to be correct and thus believe it as the reality of the world. However what they don’t know is that this is not the world and what they will soon find out is that the things they once saw with their eyes what they smelt, what they heard, what they felt were just shadows of real images and objects cast on the wall by fire. What this does is show that sense experience can be at fault because the one perceiving is at times is ignorant of the fact that they know nothing of the true reality of the world and its workings. One must be showed how things are in order to learn and thus no longer be ignorant but have now begun taking steps towards wisdom.
The "Allegory of the cave "is broken down into four levels. The cave itself representing the tunnel we as humans have dug for ourselves away from the world of learning and knowledge to a world of safe answers where nothing is ever questioned . The cave represents the human's subconscious struggle to be safe and hide from the unknown. Beginning with Level one . The shadow watchers(the mystified )Illusion the figures and shadows reflection on the cave wall.This level is best described as such because the prisoners are not seeing what is real .They are seeing a copy or illusion of what is the real.They are seeing what they want to see.Level two The shadow casters .I believe the shadow casters area people who realize that the world is not as it
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
James Baldwin once said “It is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished...that he is set free, that he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.” This quote displays the abundance of courage that is needed to leave everything an individual has in order to move forward. The bravest thing he can do once he has lost his identity, is to surrender who he was and open his mind to the possibility of wo he is going to be.
The influence of Plato’s “Allegory of the cave” is very evident in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. The allegory illustrates are inability to look beyond our immediate reality; to look beyond ou...
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
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 prisoners in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The imagery used in Young Goodman Brown amplifies the theme of the loss of
Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ rotates around the notion of our vision as humans being limited, and only being exposed to a certain extent of knowledge within our surroundings. The Allegory of the Cave presented a rare case where prisoners were trapped in a cave for all their lives with hands, neck and feet bound to look at a wall with shadows beings casted by a fire that lies behind them. Once a prisoner breaks free of the binds, his curiosity allows him to follow the light that then exposes him to the real world where he is blinded by the sun. Each of the elements in the allegory are symbols that can be related to modern day situations as metaphors. Though society has evolved drastically, many struggles that we face today resemble the allegory.
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a story being told by Socrates to Plato’s brother, Glaucon. Socrates tells of prisoners in an underground cave who are made to look upon the front wall of the cave. To the rear of the prisoners, below the protection of the parapet, lie the puppeteers whom are casting the shadows on the wall in that the prisoners are perceiving reality. Once a prisoner is free, he's forced to look upon the fire and objects that once determined his perception of reality, and he so realizes these new pictures before of him are now the accepted forms of reality. Plato describes the vision of the real truth to be "aching" to the eyes of the prisoners, and the way they might naturally be inclined to going back and viewing what they need perpetually seen as a pleasing and painless acceptance of truth. This stage of thinking is noted as "belief."
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
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.
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a representation of the normal human behavior as well as the circumstances we presently encounter on a day-to-day basis. The Allegory of the Cave symbolically describes our circumstances as human beings in today’s world. Plato uses a number of key elements to depict the image of the human condition. Plato's images contain relatable ideas in regards to society that are related to my everyday life. By reading Plato I have personally begun to expand my though process and have learned not to rely solely on my senses. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave brings philosophy’s teachings to the forefront and makes it easy for us readers to understand what philosophy is trying to teach us.
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.