Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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At first glance, it would seem that Plato’s ideal polis is built upon a great contradiction. In the Republic, Plato repeatedly espouses the virtues of truth and of continuously searching for the truth. In fact, the words ‘true’ and ‘truth’ are written over 900 times in the Republic. At the same time, however, Plato mentions several different falsehoods that would be of vital importance to the polis. In fact, he sets out guidelines as to who in the polis can and cannot lie. In the words of classical scholars Smith and Brickhouse, “Plato has created a paradox of the first order." (Brickhouse, Smith, 1983) Plato’s apparent doublethink with regards to the importance of truth in the polis is quite troubling and scholars have long sought to reconcile …show more content…

Plato explains his theory with his famous Allegory of the Cave. In this parable, Plato imagines “men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width… they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only, and prevented by fetters from turning their head. Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.” (514a-b) These prisoners know no other reality and thus believe that the shadows of the puppets are all that exist. Plato continues to explain that if one of these men were able to break free of their fetters and leave the cave, they would see the world for how it truly is. Plato uses this parable to explain our universe. Humans are compared to the chained prisoners, while the shadows are compared to physical objects we can recognize through our senses. The prisoner who is able to break free and see the truth of the outside world is analogous to the philosopher who can understand the true Forms, or eidos in ancient Greek, of these physical objects that exist in a non-physical realm he terms the intelligible realm. Thus, Plato’s purpose in the Republic is creating a polis as close to the elusive Forms of justice and good as

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