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Is Plato's Allegory Still Relevant Today

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The Allegory of the Cave is a brilliant writing by Plato that really puts into perspective how we are living as a part of a materialistic and consumer society. The darn thing was written almost 2,500 years ago, and considering the fact that the allegory is still relevant today, Plato’s allegory is surprisingly very close to what contemporary society is like. His arguments are undoubtedly strong since he patches all his arguments well to lower any possibilities of counter arguments, but there is still room for doubt. Also, even with those weaknesses, the prisoners in the allegory are still indisputably similar to the people of today, and the cave doubtlessly like the modern society. In this essay, I will discuss some of Plato’s strength and weaknesses in his arguments as well as how the allegory still applies to the current people and society. …show more content…

One of the piece’s greatest strength is its lack of room for criticism and finds a way to give an explanation for everything in a way that the average person can understand. Even with its weaknesses of being overly simplified for today’s society, is still very relevant when it comes down to how people are and what the world is like in its most basic form. Since it was written so long ago, life back then was much simpler than life is now. Even then, the things in the allegory can still be compared to present-day life. People nowadays are ignorant towards seeking more than just what we are force-fed by the government and media much like the prisoners in the allegory, and do become defensive or even hostile when their ideas are challenged. The cave, the chains, and the shadows all represent something that controls modern people like it controlled the prisoners in the cave. So, the world has not changed much from the written allegory 2400 years ago. The only things that have changed are the size of the cave, the time, and the grip of the

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The allegory of the cave contains a very poignant message about learning and new experiences but it’s not real. It’s written as Socrates telling a story in order to illustrate his point. The first man is forcibly removed from the cave and shown the light, creating a painful experience. Douglass’ story is autobiographical and it shows a true need for knowledge in order to be free from the bondage of slavery.

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Plato tells us that the prisoners are confused on their emergence from the cave and that the prisoners’ will be blinded once they had been freed from the cave. After a period of time they will adjust their eyesight and begin to understand the true reality that the world poses. The stubbornness to develop a different perspective is seen in much of today’s society. The allegory of the cave is an understanding of what the true world is and how many people never see it because of their views of the society they are raised in.

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“Life is like being chained up in a cave”.(Alex Gendler) The novel, Fahrenheit 451, definitely compares to the film, Plato’s allegory. Everything from the truths to the differences reflects in both the novel and the allegory. There were many things that were very similar between the two, that were in fact startling and shocking. Throughout this essay, similarities of the two, will be discussed, and most importantly prove how the different aspects of the novel relates to the allegory.

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Throughout the last five weeks, I have read three of Plato’s dialogues: the cave allegory, Euthyphro, and the Apology. While reading them, I was able to see Plato’s view of a philosophical life. To live philosophically is to question appearances and look at an issue/object from a new perspective. In this essay, I will explain Plato’s cave allegory, Socrates’ discussion with Euthyphro, and the oracle story in the Apology.

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The people who are chained up get set free by the keeper, who is a symbol of the sun, or the “Rooster” who wakes people up from their illusions. The people are blinded by the sun and they want to go back to their illusion of life. This is when the people are in the Belly of the Whale or when they are symbolically dead. Once the people realize there is no way of going back to the way it was, they are “reborn” from their illusions and live their lives to the fullest and not take for granted what they have. Plato’s Allegory of the cave is

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Book VII ("Allegory of the cave"), describes a scene carry out in a dark cave. In this scene, a group of human beings have been living in a cave since birth; they have never seen the light of day. These people have only focused on what is in front of them but never what is beyond what they can see, "chained, can't turn their heads." Behind them is a fire and behind the fire is a wall. There are various statues placed and manipulated by other people on top of the wall.

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1) In the allegory of the cave, Plato’s main goal is to illustrate his view of knowledge. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave their whole lives and all they have ever been exposed to were shadows on the wall and voices of people walking by. The prisoners in the cave represent humans who only pay attention to the physical aspects of the world (sight and sound). Once one of them escapes and sees the blinding light, all he wants is to retreat back to the cave and return to his prior way of living. This shows that Plato believes enlightenment and education are painful, but the pain is necessary for enlightenment and it is worth it.

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Eli Martinez September 14, 2016 Imagine a country in which the only emotions you feel are joy and happiness but underneath all of this lies a terrible fact. The story Those who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin tells of all this and it can greatly be compared to The Allegory of the cave by Plato, The book 1984 by George Orwell and to The United States of America in many ways. First of all the story about Omelas tells of a city state where everyone is happy and people live in harmony among one another but what the reader does not know until further in the story is that underneath all this is a sad truth about how the citizens of Omelas keep innocent children who are thought of as defective underneath the castle in a cellar where the only reality that they know is the reality of living in a cellar with nothing to do and very malnourished. This is a great example of how plato 's Allegory of the cave relates to this story of Omelas because it relates to the people who are kept in a cave in plato 's story and they only know the life given to them in that cave.

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Socrates’s allegory of the cave in Plato’s Republic Book VII is an accurate depiction of how people can be blinded by what they are only allowed to see. The allegory does have relevance to our modern world. In fact, all of us as a species are still in the “cave” no matter how intelligent or enlightened we think we have become. In Plato’s Republic Book VII, Socrates depicts the scenario in a cave where there are prisoners who are fixed only being able to look at the shadows on the wall which are projections of things passing between them and the light source.

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In Plato’s allegory of the cave, it also suggests an alternate world, a world that isn’t recognizably like, in " Allegory of the Cave “and in "The Machine Stops" they both throughout the story

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#2 Plato’s Allegory In Modern Day Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is about the human perspective and enlightenment. In todays society Plato’s allegory is still relevant and is deeply rooted in education. College students are a perfect analogy for the “Allegory of the Cave”. We are told from the very beginning that we need to have an education to be successful in life.

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First off, one rhetoric that " The Allegory of the Cave" has is a metaphor. A metaphor is comparing two unlike things. The focal thought is, a few detainees were bolted into a give in and the couldn't escape. It speaks to that how much freedom is worth. In the event that you never had an opportunity to see the outside world, you just can envision what it resembles.

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Searching for the truth is very challenging, as the world today entrenched in lies. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” briefly tells a story about cavemen being chained on most parts of their body, restring all movement including their head, since childhood. Then, he discussed the consequences inflicted onto the cavemen, specifically their perspective towards the truth after being chained for a long period of time in the dark cave, which resembles many events occurring in a person’s daily life. Based on the discussed effects, the author argues that human beings should always seek the real meaning of truth.

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In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato’s idea of the human who escaped the cave, but came back to tell about his learnings but the other people in the cave did not want to listen to him since they believed that the cave was the real truth and did not want to be educated about the outside

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In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the people think that their entire reality is the shadows that they see on the walls of the cave. Plato explores the truth and criticizes that humanity does not question what is real. Plato explores that the human understanding and accepting of what is real is difficult and

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