The Allegory’s of Life In The Allegory of the Cave, Plato uses a vast spectrum of imagery to explain ones descent from the cave to the light. While Plato uses this Allegory to explain his point through Socrates to Glaucon. This allegory has many different meanings. The Allegory can be used in many different ways, from religion to politics to ones own intellectual enlightenment, or it can be interpreted as the blinded person in a colt like reality. Are we all prisoners in a world that is forced on us through the media? How do we really know that we are not just pawns in some one’s chess game. What meaning was Plato trying to introduce to Glaucon? This cave can represent many aspects in the world. And the prisoners can be any one. The …show more content…
Secondly there can be a religious allegory of the cave. The figures that were shown to the prisoner in the cave could be viewed as idols praised by the prisoners and puppeteers. Religion can be viewed by some as a cave. Being kept in the dark of there religion and forced never to see the light. Some religions brain wash there followers to see things only there way. If you don’t see, act or think how there religion views you should be. they may kill you. The Amish religion can be view like the prisoners in the cave. They are taught from a small age that God is all you need and the everyday life most Americans live is a blasphemy of God. They live a simple life most have no electrical devices and choose to dress modestly and in plain colored clothing. Some Amish travel to towns for supplies but most tend to grow everything there self. Children are shielded from the outside world until there teenage years when they participate in rumspringa. This event is where teenagers are given the choice to stay within the Amish culture or they choose to be an outsider. In summary the Amish are similar to the prisoners in the cave being told what to do and how to act there whole life until the day they can see the world and make their own choices. One important note most Amish teenagers choose to stay within the Amish community. Cults are similar to the Allegory of the cave. Members are kept in the dark, from what
The whole point of the allegory is to represent to journey to enlightenment. The prisoners represent either the unenlightened that have not had enough experience to gain great wisdom or the uneducated that have not learned enough to gain great intelligence. And being thrown out of the cave into the outside world represents the process of becoming enlightened. Once enlightened they would of course not want to leave and to make them go back into the Cave would be cruel, as is noted by Glaucon. But as is explained 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” (873). Plato claims that these enlightened have a moral responsibility to bring their wisdom to the common people in order to help them learn more so everyone can benefit from the knowledge of an individual. This is certainly an agreeable prospect and one that is not seen enough in the real world. Once
In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato talks of men chained inside of a cave, prisoners. He describes how they perceive the world, and the truth of what they see. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave correlates to today’s society because the prisoners in the cave represent the average people of modern times.
In the instance of Plato’s cave allegory, the scenery associated with prisoners shackled to a cave has a very oppressive connotation to it; despite this, within the cave is ironically where many of the prisoners feel the greatest sense of solace. All symbolic implications aside, this scene does make very much logical sense simply because the cave is all that the prisoner’s have known for their whole lives. From an outsider’s perspective, it is easy for us to write off those involved in this situation as pitifully ignorant. However, there are undoubtedly moments in all of our lives in which we are the ones adamant that staying shackled to a cave is where we belong. While this metaphor can be applied to a plethora of different
In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” the allegory implies that for the people living in a world of the senses, there is this idea that they blindly follow and accept the things that they are acquainted with. The prisoners in the cave have been bound to chains and forced to face only one direction their entire lives and that is at the wall. Because they cannot turn around and see the world that is behind them they only have knowledge of the things they have been exposed to (the shadows) so they believe that the shadows are the truest things of the world. Once they are set free from the chains and can finally turn around they realize that there was more to their world than they had originally thought.
The Allegory of the Cave Plato, is recognized as one of the reputable and admired philosophers of his time and of all time. Dating back from ancient Greece, Plato and philosophers of the like, attempted to answer life’s deepest questions like “what is reality” and “where are we going.” Through deep thought and debate, these philosophers were able to formulate opinions and theories; opinions and theories that are still discussed in today’s modern society. One such example to discuss life and the truth is The Allegory of the Cave, a portion of one of Plato’s most famous works, The Republic. Through The Allegory of the Cave, Plato is able to explain the “The Forms” and knowledge in a context that people of ancient Greece were able to comprehend.
The Allegory of the Cave The Allegory of the Cave is actually a part of the Plato’s writings who is a Greek philosopher in his series of writings titled as “The Republic” (Plato, 514). The Republic was written in different parts and took different years to compile the writings together from years 514a to 520a. These series of books were written to highlight the psychology of the people individuals and how they act in different situations and era of life. It is written in the form of dialogue between Socrates and especially this writing “The Allegory of the Cave” is written in the dialogue form between Socrates and the brother of Plato named as Glaucon by Plato. Those series of Plato actually describes how the education in the lives of the people brings change.
In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, "The Allegory of the Cave” is a symbolic story of which there are prisoners in a cave with a fire that is located behind them. They have always faced the wall of the cave and have only seen what was outside of the cave from the shadows. They believe that the shadows of the objects carried are real, but in reality, it 's just a shadow of the truth. The prisoners play a game where they guess what the shadows are and end up believing that it is the truth. However, when one prisoner escapes and faces reality, where the sun is a source of life, he realizes that the game was pointless. He seeks for meaning and truth from his journey outside of the cave. Socrates then insists that he must return to the cave and share what he has found with the prisoners because it will benefit everyone as a whole. However, when he returns and informs the prisoners, they react by not believing him and threatening to kill him if he set them free, because they are scared of the change that would occur after knowing the truth. Socrates believes that knowledge gained through senses is no more than an opinion. True knowledge is gained through reasoning and understanding. The allegory could symbolize positivity in modern American society.
The Allegory of the Cave is written by the brilliant mind of Plato. In the famous dialogue, Socrates, a well known philosopher, teaches to a student, Glaucon, about gaining wisdom and enlightenment. He uses the cave and the prisoners as an analogy to help make his argument more clear and understandable. It questions those who have knowledge and their responsibilities. Those who have knowledge may not realize that he or she plays an important role in society and its future. Their role involves appreciation, morals, and betterment for society. When someone gains wisdom from an experience, he or she should be morally obligated to pass on the wisdom to others because it can overall benefit society.
In the story The Allegory of the Cave, Plato describes the perception of reality. He explains how to interpret ideas or objects in different perspectives. The story he tells about the cave could have influenced different modern day ideas. Some ideal examples might include religion, abuse, and imprisonment. Plato’s cave theory applies to all of these ideas and can show many different perspectives.
‘Plato’s Cave’ is an allegory exhibiting the impact of education and the deficiency of it on our nature. As most metaphorical writing does, its two degrees of meanings--literary and allegorical--holds figurative or symbolic implications that one could vastly acquire information from. The allegory illustrates a dark cave, where people are chained, not able to move or turn around. There is a wall between them and the outside world, on which many other people move with different items, forming shadows. The shadows and the occasional sounds the people make are the only matters that the chained men could apprehend. But then, Plato hypothesizes, what if one man is released from the cave? A number of philosophical concepts are derived from this single question, namely the notion of truth.
On the surface of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” it is just a simple piece, but the main purpose of the piece is to explain people living in a world of face value and having individuals break free from the main idea to create a new sense of what the world is truly about. In here, Plato uses the writing style of allegory to encompass the use of imagery and symbolism to explain his purpose. He also uses very clever dialogue with constant repetition to represent a bigger idea about the philosophy with chained up people living in a cave of shadows.
The allegory of all allegories, The Cave, describes the World as dark as a cave, where human beings are trapped as prisoners, with nothing but shadows displayed on a wall for their experiences of the world. The allegory of the cave, according to Heidegger, is an illustration to the process of the paideia. Heidegger begins “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” by providing his translation of The Cave. He does this to introduce his own terms and interpretations of the text.
I do agree the allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. When you look at a person or situation from the external appearances and make a judgment about that person or situation. Most of the time a person's decision turned out to be wrong Furthermore, make you pass up a great opportunity for meeting an extraordinary individual reality, people never try to know the truth when they 've taken time out to get to know someone or something; they may find out that their pre-judgment was wrong. Glaucon forms his image of the men in prison. He feels like they are the bizarre prisoner based on the strange image shown by Socrates. He does not know the people, but he is looking at their outer
After watching the video about Plato’s allegory I have came to know that there is a correlation between our semester studies and Plato’s allegory. I believe that everything that we learn at any level, it helps us to determine and understand the other knowledge, so my semester studies help me to understand the Plato’s allegory. By keeping in view the concepts that I have learned about Plato’s allegory I can say that the allegory of the cave has additionally allegorical significance since such a large number of typical proposals are utilized as a part of this writings. The dark cave symbolically proposes the contemporary universe of lack of awareness and the chained individuals symbolize ignorant individuals in this ignorant world. The raised divider symbolizes the impediment of our reasoning and the shadow symbolically propose the universe of tangible recognition
One of the most intriguing and thought provoking topics discussed in class was Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. After learning about this topic, I had many thoughts about today’s society and how Allegory of the Cave applies to it. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave describes a group of individuals living in a cave, with their necks chained, facing a blank wall. Objects passing in front of a fire behind them create shadows on the wall in front of them. The prisoners believe that the shadows are reality. If one of the prisoners were set free and told that the people and things he now sees are more real than the shadows, he would not believe. If forced out of the cave, he would be blinded by the sun, but would gradually be able to see reality. If this same prisoner went back to the cave, he would not be able to function in such fake reality and if he tried to explain to