Plato, S Theory Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Allegory of the cave The allegory of the cave is one of Plato’s many theories, probably one of his most known theories as well. This theory is based on the human perception. Plato would say that the knowledge gained through the senses is no more than your opinion but in order to have actual knowledge you have to obtain it through philosophical reasoning. In his theory, he separates people who think that their sensory knowledge it the truth and people who really see the truth.
The allegory of the cave starts off with Plato telling his audience to imagine that they are prisoners in a cave. He tells them that they are chained up to some large rocks and that their arms, legs, and head are tied so that they can only look at the stonewall directly …show more content…

The shadows seen on the cave wall are a truth to those people and Plato says that if you believe everything you see then you are just seeing a shadow of the real truth. The game the prisoners played while in the cave was interesting to me because it showed how anyone can believe one person is a master of nature when they have ‘knowledge’ of the world observed by senses. I also liked Plato’s feelings about the game they played, he felt that it showed how the master does not actually know the truth, and suggests that it is ridiculous to admire someone like this. The prisoner that had escaped can be seen as the philosopher because he or she seeks knowledge outside the cave (or outside the senses). The only thing that I found to represent itself in the story was the journey the prisoner went on to find beauty and wisdom. One very interesting element Plato added to this story was the return of the prisoner. At first I asked myself “why would the prisoner go back to the cave” but then I realized that it also represented something and that was that most people are scared to know what is real and would rather stick to what they know rather than going out of their comfort zone to possibly see something differently or to see the actual

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