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Allegory of the cave critique
Analysis of the cave part of Plato's allegory
Analysis of the cave part of Plato's allegory
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The word allegory is a noun in which it means, " a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one." Keeping this in mind the story “The Allegory of the Cave” written by Plato over twenty-five hundred years ago tells a mini story about a group of men that were chained up in a cave since birth with no knowledge of the outside world. They sit in a row next to each other facing a blank wall mostly in the darkness. Even though there is a fire above and behind them, there is only a dim light that casts into the cave. The fire can be seen through a window, however, the men are unaware the "fire" and of their own shadows due to a long wall in front of the fire. As the men sit in that same spot not able to turn their necks because of the wooden blank holding …show more content…
their heads, they can only see the shadows of the objects that the people on the surface lift up and carry over their shoulders casting in front of the fire as they walk past the cave. One day a man comes into the cave and lets one of the men free.
The first thing the man does was to twist his body around and tilts his neck up just enough to see the light. As soon as the man's eyes follow up the wall and the light was now directly in his line of vision, the man becomes irritated and overwhelmed with how bright the light was compared to the dim light he was costumed too. The man was then told that everything before him was just illusions. Slowly the man becomes aware of what is going on around and is confused to these new meanings of life and the things he grew up knowing. The person of who freed the man from the cave walked with him and pointed out all the things that were shown to the man as shadows and proceeds to try to get the man to explain what the new objects are. Not only could he not do that but the man was struck with pain as he looked up towards the sun which gave off a much brighter light than he's ever seen. Not before long the man begins to see objects for what they are and understands everything around him. Gradually he is able to look up to the sun and see how the sun gives off the light to everything that casts a
shadow. So, then, in the end, the man went back into shadows and tries to cope with the darkness and teach the other men of things he has learned. As he walking through he realizes that he is no longer useful to the darkness and he can not see the shows on the walls as well as he could before. The other men basically call a fool for going to the surface and that he has blinded himself in the process. When he tried to free them they aggressively refused and the man returns back to the to the surface to continue living out of the shadows. The overall story tells people that living in the shadows only gives off a part of the truth and beauty of the full picture as a whole. “The Allegory of the Cave” is a story of ages for the simple fact that everyone has a tendency to only search and look at the things they want and if/when someone tries to help they branch further from that they can get defensive and harsh with both their words and actions.
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato described a group of people that have lived their lives confined to a cave, tied to a pole making them face a wall. On this wall you could only see shadows of what was going on behind you, and from that they misperceived shadows from reality. One day, one of the inhabitants broke free and was able to leave the cave, only to be shocked by what “true reality” was outside of the cave and what was different from the shadows he saw on the cave wall. He was so excited that he wanted to go back into the cave and basically enlightened the other prisoners about what he saw,
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
My understanding of the cave allegory is someone who has lived his life in confinement; the only life he has ever known. Isolated from the outside world, everything that he experiences is a false reality. He sees things projected on the wall and he thinks they are real, when in fact, they are illusions. Once he is torn away from his environment, he is frightened of what he is now experiencing. As his senses awaken, he begins to see and experience the beauty all around him. He now realizes that this is how life is truly meant to live and he must go back and share his discovery with the others. However, they are not eager to leave their familiar surroundings. Upon returning to the cave, he has a hard time adjusting to his previous environment, He now knows all that he previously thought was
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.
Plato’s logical strategy in the allegory of the cave is of deductive reasoning. Plato uses a cave containing people bound by chains which constrict their neck and legs in such a way that they are unable to turn around and there is a fire roaring behind them casting shadows on the wall. Since the prisoners cannot turn their heads to see what is casting the shadow the only thing they can perceive are the shadows and the sounds that seem to becoming from them. This is what Plato argues in the allegory of the cave “To them, I said, the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images.”(The Allegory of the Cave Plato). Since these prisoners know nothing outside of the cave they are ignorant of the “light” and are content on seeing the shadows before them. Plato describes what it would be like for a prisoner to be released and forced to go out of the cave into the light Plato describes it as being “blinding”. Once the freed prisoner became accustomed to the light outside the cave it is believed by Socrates and Glaucon, inside Plato’s allegory that the prisoner would not want to return to the darkness from which he had “ascended”. Once the prisoner has become accustomed to the light Socrates said “I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed, they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not”. (The Allegory of the Cave Plato) This is where Plato begins to start on the topic of leadership. Although Plato uses some cause and effect elements in his allegory, such as “Where as if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that henc...
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" presents a vision of humans as slaves chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of things on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows are the only "reality" the slaves know. Plato argues that there is a basic flaw in how we humans mistake our limited perceptions as reality, truth and goodness. The allegory reveals how that flaw affects our education, our spirituality and our politics.
The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He sees it as what happens when someone is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must "go back into the cave" or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power struggles. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or are slaves to their senses. The chains that bind the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the details of the cave into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the cave? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our soul's ascent to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellect's world of opinion. Both were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to "see" things that are not real, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher understanding the world "abstract Reality" or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand abstract reality requires the understanding of mathematics and finally the forms or the Ideals of all things (the world outside the cave). But our understanding of the physical world is mirrored in our minds by our ways of thinking. First comes imagination (Socrates thought little of creativity), then our unfounded but real beliefs. Opinion gives way to knowledge through reasoning (learned though mathematics). Finally, the realization of the forms is mirrored by the level of Understanding in the Ways of Thinking. The key to the struggle for knowledge is the reasoning skills acquired through mathematics as they are applied to understanding ourselves. The shadows on the cave wall change continually and are of little worth, but the reality out side the cave never changes and that makes it important.
Freedom in mind, freedom in nature, and freedom in subjectivity of individual are three kinds of freedoms. However, freedom should be expressed within the limits of reason and morality. Having freedom equals having the power to think, to speak, and to act without externally imposed restrains. As a matter of fact, finding freedom in order to live free is the common idea in Plato with "The Allegory of the Cave"; Henry David Thoreau with " Where I lived and What I lived for"; and Jean Paul Sartre with " Existentialism". Generally, Plato, Thoreau, and Sartre suggested that human life should be free. They differ in what that freedom is. Plato thinks it is found in the world of intellect, Thoreau thinks freedom is found in nature, and Sartre thinks freedom is found in subjectivity of individual.
What is truly real, and what is not? This question is one which has been pondered deeply throughout human history, and it seemingly has no definitive answer. To understand what is truly a part of reality, and what isn’t, may be an impossible feat. However, two famous works created by humans from two distant time periods attempt to dissect and analyze this philosophical question. The first, The Allegory of the Cave, was written by the great Greek philosopher, Plato, who was born in 428 B.C. in Athens, Greece. The Allegory of the Cave is a piece of a larger work of Plato’s, The Republic, which is a collection of works concerning political philosophy. The Republic is his most famous work and what he is best known for in today’s world. The second
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.
Do we really understand the world we live in and see everyday? Is our everyday perception of reality a misinterpretation, which somehow we can’t break free from? A famous Greek philosopher by the name of Plato sought out to explain this in an experiment he called the Cave Allegory. I will discuss what the Cave Allegory is as well as talk about the movie Interstellar, which is a great example of Plato’s Cave Allegory and how it relates to Plato’s ideas. The question we have to answer first is, what is Plato’s Cave Allegory?
In Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave," Socrates tells an allegory of the hardship of understanding reality. Socrates compares a prisoner of an underground cave who is exploring a new world he never knew of to people who are trying to find a place of wisdom in reality.