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The Allegory Of Cave In Plato's Republic

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Recommended: Analyze Plato's allegory of the cave

At the beginning of Part I, the allegory of cave by Plato's Republic emphasizes how sense experience serves as an important role for the gaining of true knowledge. He demonstrates how the shadows created by the puppeteers influence the prisoners' minds to view the world (Plato 5-6). However, I think that sense experience has its own limitations hindering the way to explore new knowledge.

First limitation is that inference from sense experience may come up a misguided premise because of the weak relationship in between. Aristotle proposed that things in nature are nonbeing, potential being and actual being (Lindberg 22). From this concept, people that time may conclude a general property by what they felt in daily sense experience. Nonetheless, things in nature have their varieties which people cannot experience all of them to generate a …show more content…

His attitude on mathematical proving made original inductive reasoning into deductive reasoning by mathematics calculation. For instance, Newton described locomotion by using mathematical proved formula of body mass and body's acceleration to demonstrate how things are applied in force (Newton 64). This demonstration induces the advancement from strong argument of inductive reasoning to valid argument of deductive reasoning. This essential step overcomes the limitation of sense experience that the premise from mathematics calculation is necessary. Rigorous proof of argument can thus persuade public to believe which likes building critical blocks for citizens in society to climb up the upward journey to learn what they never seen before. Newton's important step likes releasing the prisoners' fetters to avoid the dominance of sense experience (Plato 6), but at the same time fostering them to understand the world step by step in the principle of mathematical

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773 Words | 4 Pages

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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588 Words | 3 Pages

In Plato’s “Allegory of a Cave” the main goal and plotline for the prisoner was to be able to go to the light to gain a full concept of truth, reality and justice. After passing the entranceway, he is met by the light which provides him “sharp pains” which eventually turn into being dazzled by it. However, as he grows customary to the light and the enlightenment that is brought forward to him, Plato questions whether he will fully grasp the notion of it. To present instinct Plato writes, “And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain his his eyes which will make him turn away to thale refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the thing which are now being shown to him? True, he said.”

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325 Words | 2 Pages

Reading Socrates’ Allegory of the Cave gave me different perspectives when it comes to the relationship between intellectual pursuit and good governances, and the relationship between the physical world and our mind in the pursuit of gaining knowledge. The Allegory of the Cave is a parable that displays how, we as humans, are afraid of change and what we do not know or understand. Basically what Socrates is trying to argue is that based upon what people are brought up to believe, that is how they think and they are afraid to change that mindset. Socrates suggests that the shadows compose what life is like for the prisoners because they have never seen anything else; because they are chained up and can’t turn around, they can only see what’s

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1377 Words | 6 Pages

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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595 Words | 3 Pages

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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817 Words | 4 Pages

Truth is often a term that is taken into consideration when one is verbally speaking, but most find it rather difficult to truly define truth. While every person can attempt to uniquely give their own interpretation to what the world regards as truth, the realm of philosophy presents several brilliants ideas about the concept. In general, the study of philosophy recognizes two truths: objective and subjective. Objective truth can be described as truth that has always existed whether one knows it or not, while subjective truth is dependent on the person’s ideas and feelings towards a reality. Influential and well-known philosophers such as Mortimer J. Adler and Plato have contributed thoughts that often present similar ideas about the definition

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650 Words | 3 Pages

How does the story "The Machine Stops" echo the sentiments of Plato in "The Allegory of the Cave"? "The Machine Stops," The two main characters, Vashti and her son Kuno, live on opposite sides of the world. Vashti is content with her life, which, like most people of that world, she spends producing and endlessly discussing secondhand 'ideas '. Kuno, however, is a sensualist and a rebel. He tells Vashti that he has visited the surface of the Earth without permission, and without the life support apparatus supposedly required to survive in the toxic outer air, and he saw other humans living outside the world of the Machine.

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400 Words | 2 Pages

The purpose of Plato's parable of the Cave is to give a perception into his view of knowledge. There are a lot of people who are not only comfortable in their ignorance but are aggressive to anyone who pinpoints them out. According to Plato "knowledge is perceiving things in different ways". All individuals are capable to learn, but not everyone has the passion to learn. I can relate Plato's epistemology theory of Forms and Truth in comparison with the parable of the Cave, because a Form is an idea about what a thing is.

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927 Words | 4 Pages

Tremendous improvements in the understanding of mathematics and science occurred during the Enlightenment. Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, ‘The Fathers of the Enlightenment’, were both philosophers and scientists. Rene Descartes wrote The Discourse on Method which

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836 Words | 4 Pages

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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1690 Words | 7 Pages

With no experience of its taste, one could never construct an idea of what wine would taste like. Likewise, someone unable to feel a particular emotion, fear for example, could have no concept of what fear would feel like without having experienced that sensation. This is due to the principle that ideas are mere copies of our impressions, and so we can have no notion of what fear is if we have never experienced the sensation of being scared before. Hume

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944 Words | 4 Pages

Isaac Newton has been portrayed by some as “one of the utmost name in human meditation.” Newton was accountable for discovering many excellent systematic and arithmetical concepts. During summer 1665, Newton came up with his theory of motion, which turned to alchemy as a diversion. Being like any other philosopher, Newton sought to provide accurate explanations and clarification of natural events. Nevertheless, Newton being a practitioner of religion, magic, and chemistry he sought to use and experience mathematics for accurate account and enlightenment of natural events.

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1125 Words | 5 Pages

Are we always at the mercy of others and our own experiences? Are the truths we cling to always reality? Are we ever truly free or are we always prisoners in our own mind? These are some of the questions that went through my mind while reading Plato’s allegory of the cave. Through them I’ve come to understand one of the biggest themes in this allegory is our ability to “shackle” ourselves mentally, but also our ability to free ourselves if only we have the courage.

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1159 Words | 5 Pages

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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1319 Words | 6 Pages

The allegory of the Cave is presented by Plato, as a dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates, the latter being the narrator. Socrates paints a picture of the allegory for readers, as he asks them to imagine prisoners trapped in a cave all their life, facing a wall and unable to move their heads. The allegory can be summed up in three main parts, which are the imprisonment in the cave, departure and return to the cave. The prisoners are misled by the shadows, which they believe to be reality. This is clear as Socrates says, “Then the prisoners would in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts” (515c).

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