Bullshit In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the prisoners had only shadows on the wall to look at since birth. Once a prisoner was released to the outside world, he soon found out that the shadows had only been a lie, that once the cave was lit up with light from the sun shining in, everything he once knew had changed and disappeared. This event leads the prisoner to face the question of whether should he go back to the cave to share what he knows about reality. I believe that he shouldn’t go back to the cave to share with the other prisoners what he knows because they haven’t learned the same way that he did, so they would believe the freed prisoner is bullshitting them. What is bullshit? At first glance, many people think that bullshit is just lies

A lie is an untrue statement made with the intent to deceive someone or something. How do these correlate with each other? Bullshit is a misrepresentation of something, that stems from the intention to lead someone in another direction other than the truth, while truth is not a misrepresentation of something, it is a statement made with the purpose to hide the truth. The presence of the word “bullshit” is dwelled upon in Harry G. Frankfurt’s philosophy book “On Bullshit”, he states that there are many uses of the word bullshit and that it has become a great part of our lives. In this essay, I will argue that the shadows in the cave and the puppets were indeed bullshit, and I will do this by discussing the difference between bullshit and lying, the uses of the word bullshit, and analyzing why we use this word and our intent behind

But what exactly is the difference between lying and bullshitting? Is there a difference between the two? And how do we know whether something is just bullshit or a lie? There is a huge difference between lying and bullshitting. Bullshitting someone or something is a careless effort to get away with something. When people are bullshitting others, they are usually throwing out whatever excuse or story they can think of without caring about whether it makes sense or is true. Although there are many opinions on bullshit, the difference between lying and bullshitting is the intent. (Frankfurt) When you lie to someone, you have the intent to get away with something. If you have the intent, you must care about the truth of the situation. In Allegory of the Cave, the shadows are representations of reality for the prisoners. These shadows were created by puppets and the fire that was behind them, but without the option to turn and see the fire, the prisoners didn’t know anyone was creating these shadows. When the prisoner was released, he saw the true reality of things and how shadows are cast. This creates the question, were the people creating the shadows of the puppets bullshitting or lying to the prisoners? I believe they were bullshitting the prisoners. (Plato) I think this because they obviously didn’t care whether the prisoners knew the truth or not