Plato And Francis Bacon And Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

In their respective writings, both philosophers Plato and Francis Bacon try to answer the straightforward, yet trying question of how one truly knows what they claim to know. Plato, equipped with his writing, Allegory of the Cave, takes a strike at this question using a dialogue structured text to give his position on the subject. On the other hand, Bacon takes a different approach as he constructs a list of four false images of the mind, which he labels as idols, and believes to be the answer to this topic. While engaging in different approaches, both philosophers are successful in answering the question at hand, as well as fundamental issue they approach in their logical thinking, while also coming to agreement on some of these issues.

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...

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... this statement, Plato is using figurative language in order to portray the light as the new, and correct concept shown to people and the pain in the eyes is the ignorance and unwillingness for a person to change their viewpoints. Similarly to Plato’s quote, Bacon also dives into this issue in his writing, mostly focused in the Idols of Tribe and the Cave. He states that, “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.” (Bacon)