Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Philosophy and the Allegory of the Cave

Philosophy is probably one of the hardest words to define. Although dictionary and other professionals provide their own definition for philosophy, the word seems to be a study or a discipline that cannot be understood easily. Defining philosophy is similar to going outside of the inner life and discovering other environment. It is fearsome, difficult, and risky at the same time.

However, one of the best explanations that could best define philosophy and its focus was made by Plato through his “Allegory of the Cave”. Plato, one of the best philosophers of all time uses the story and different materials to explain the nature of philosophy. Accordingly, people are like the prisoners’ in the cave. We are

Since the three prisoners were trapped inside the cave without the opportunity to see what was outside the darkness of the cave, they tend to believe that it was normal to be in the darkness. They tend to believe that the shadows they were able to see inside the cave, the shadows that were passing by, were real creatures. The reason was that those are the images they used to see inside their normal environment.

When people are used to the things within their inner world, they are having difficulty accepting new ideas. They tend to question its essence because for them, it is irrelevant to their lives.

Likewise, people tend to believe that what they seeing are the truth. They based the reality on their senses. We tend to seek physical evidences in order to behold or accept its reality. As the famous saying quote, “What you see is what you believe”, which mean that people needs to see or witness something before we accept it as real.

The best example of the sense-based acceptance is the existence of God. Although God is widely embraced belief, there are still other individuals who questioned the existence of Heavenly Father. There are still claim that God is not existent because there is no physical evidence to support such claim. There are still individuals who are called Atheist or non-believer of God because they argue that God is not

As the road, buildings, and bridges were building on either an upward or straighten pattern, early belief was that the world is flat. Thus, the map was made as it was literally envisioned to be. However, as great warrior of discovery took the courage to escape from the sense-based theory, the share of the world evolved. From being flat, the Earth was now said to be either round or sphere-shaped. Thus, the world was represented by a globe to depict how the Earth looks like as well as the placing of each countries and continents.

Plato also used fear or the rejection of the other prisoners that were left inside the cave. The rejection to belief the claim of the freed prisoner usually happens to people nowadays. There are non-believers and even those who will reject to accept the presented evidences. Just like the reaction of the two remaining prisoners, there are people who won’t accept theories even if it’s supported with