The Allegory Of The Cave In Plato's The Republic

While interpreting Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave’’ in which is a representation that described a narrative of the society of people in before Christ years. I realized how there was a major comparison of people in today’s society that reflected the same prisoner traits as the prisoners that were described in the dialogue. According to the Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” It described conditions of people chained at birth unable to function as independent individuals that were locked in a protracted dark cave. They were allowed to rotate their necks but could not stand up unless told to or leave the cave. Within this cave they could only watch a wall showing flash images and objects as if the prisoners were watching a play or movies at a theater. They believed that the pictures shown on the wall were factual in which they were just shadows of objects that were behind them. The objects reflected forms and puppet that were placed up by puppeteers to create shadows on the wall. The prisoners were unable to see the puppeteers and seemed as if they were watching a puppet show in the dark.

In Plato's Cave, the prisoners are tied down with chains, hand, and foot under bondage. In fact they have been there since their childhood, which much like matrix people are seen as in reality being bound within a pad whereby they are feed images/illusions which keep them in a dreamlike state and they have been in this bondage by virtue of the virtual reality pads in the fields since their youth and like the allegory of the Cave they are completely unaware of such a predicament since in regards to the Cave they have become conditioned to the shadows that dance upon the wall and do not see the true forms of which the shadow is a mere non-substantial pattern of. In the Matrix, within the person of the virtual world, it is a non-substantial pattern of the world, it is reflective of the real world, it is a shadow in its form and nature being a simulation of the world at a particular point in history. Like the prisoners in the cave, those who are prisoners in the system of a matrix are held in their calm state by reason of the illusion that stimulates them and tricks them into remaining asleep or rather into being ignorant of the fact that they are prisoners in pads so the machines can feed on their bio-energy. The shadows on the wall which are reflective is to keep the prisoners on the Cave unaware of the fact that they are prisoners, that they are under bondage and have never truly seen life outside of the Cave. The shadows on the walls are by puppets, perchance puppeteers. They could be seen as the agents, whom within the Matrix being programs are to maintain that the humans asleep in the matrix remain in their comatose state, they are to support the illusion, by keeping man actively ignorant of what is truly happening, so they never wake up. The puppeteers of the puppets which are seen on the wall to keep the mind of the prisoners stimulated so they never realize that they are chained, and only have a vision that is straightforward, which is basically saying their minds are only subjected to a single perspective and they are blind to the degree of seeing within other perspectives, broader perspectives and this in and of itself is a limitation.

Prompt: Define Plato 's “Allegory of the Cave”. What is the central message? Is he describing education alone? Where does politics come in?

Imagery used by Plato as part of his writing style of allegory examines the shadows of the cave as ideas offered at surface level. Plato is showing people are there to believe what is given to them because they do not know anything else to be true. The shadows are explained, as “truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 450). Shadows are a brilliant use of imagery because they resemble something dark, indescribable, and hard to recognize. This helps support Plato’s argument because the truth can only be seen at the basic level without any complex details; it is just known to be true. His philosophy is that people can only see beyond the surface if they have to capability to do so and believe, what others think is crazy.

“Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light, or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye…” (Plato). In this quote from Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” an instance in which a person comes face to face with something that confounds them, it can be due to two factors. First, it could be that they are knowledgeable and are paying attention and go to seeing ignorance. Or it could be that they are not knowledgeable and are faced with veracity. A situation such as this takes place in Plato’s

Written in 1845, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself” details the events that Douglass is faced with throughout his journey from slavehood to freedom. In a sense, it is this very journey that mirrors an allegory taught by a famously wise Ancient Greek. This is, of course, the “Allegory of the Cave” from Plato’s Republic. These two texts and the concepts that they present are no doubt parallels, which is why this topic is an extremely interesting and philosophical one to discuss.

One of Plato’s more famous writings, The Allegory of the Cave, Plato outlines the story of a man who breaks free of his constraints and comes to learn of new ideas and levels of thought that exist outside of the human level of thinking. However, after having learned so many new concepts, he returns to his fellow beings and attempts to reveal his findings but is rejected and threatened with death. This dialogue is an apparent reference to his teacher’s theories in philosophy and his ultimate demise for his beliefs but is also a relation to the theory of the Divided Line. This essay will analyze major points in The Allegory of the Cave and see how it relates to the Theory of the Divided Line. Also, this

This paper discussed The Allegory of The Cave in Plato's Republic, and tries to unfold the messages Plato wishes to convey with regard to his conception of reality, knowledge and education.

The “Allegory of the Cave,” written by Plato, is a portrayal of how people can be blind to reality. In this allegory men are chained up their entire lives in a cave. These men can only see the shadows of objects and people passing behind them, therefore these men believe only what they see and what they know. When one prisoner however, is let free, it takes time for him to get used to the outside world and the sun. Just as people have their own opinions and knowledge of reality it does not mean they are true.

The belief that you do not know what life is until you experience death is a common one. Yet it is also one that can easily be doubted; how is the life I am living right now not true life? What about death or almost dying so strongly signifies that which is life? In correlation with Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” from The Republic (Book VII), it could be argued that life before experiencing some form of death is simply an appearance and anything after that encounter is in fact reality - that all that we see up to the moment of a near death experience is simply a shadow cast on the cave’s wall.

Once his initial response of confusion passes, what he sees becomes his new sense of reality. He now realizes how the fire and statues create the shadows he has always seen. He is now more familiar with real things in the world but is unaware of what lies ahead of him in the world outside of the cave. The same prisoner then gets taken out of the cave and gets put into the real world where he sees real trees, flowers, and houses, for the first time. He understands that they are more real than the statues he first knew and reaches his first thoughts using reason and logic; otherwise known as the Forms.

The shadows in the cave represent what the prisoners perceive as being the truth. However, the shadows aren’t the truth, they are an illusion- the falsehood of the truth. The prisoner who escapes to seek greater knowledge can see the real world outside of the cave, therefore he is able to see what is real. His previous interpretation of the truth is changed after being a part of reality himself. His journey to find wisdom and truth ultimately leads him back to the cave in hopes that his fellow prisoners will join him in the search for real knowledge outside of the cave.

The Republic of Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave”, is a metaphorical analogy based upon how human beings observe life. In the allegory of the cave, there is heavy dialogue going on between Plato and Glaucon. Plato is explaining how there are prisoners in the extremely dark cave that have been imprisoned since birth and how there’s a wall between them and reality. The prisoners are chained and can’t comprehend what’s going on in the outer world. Plato begins to paint the picture more stating that if just one prisoner would break free, his eyes wouldn’t adapt to the clarity of the real world, but eventually everything would appear clearer. Plato also states that even after the freed prisoner realizes the other prisoners

They can not see nor experience the ideas full due to their situation, but since it is the only thing they saw their entire lifetime they have to believe it what they see. It is not their fault for thinking a certain way because they were raised to see and think that way. It is human nature to believe something if one is constantly exposed to it, However, once one breaks free from these naive thoughts and faces the truth, everything changes. At first the truth will hurt.

The prisoners that left the cave got to venture true powerful wisdom, after their experience they are blinded. Blinded by reality, and blinded by the real light they were once looking at and the “bull” that once danced along the caves