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Personhood In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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The notion of personhood, to me is most accurately described in Plato’s writing, Allegory of the Cave. Personhood is going out of the comfort zone, if one is willing to do so and explore more than what one already knows and never wanting to go back to the way you were living before because you now see the world in a different way than before, seeing the world in more ways than the one view one had for so long can be life changing. Getting out of that “comfort zone” can bring a person on many different paths making each person’s life experience different in many ways. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave starts out with Socrates saying “Imaging human beings living in an underground, cave-like dwelling, with an entrance a long way up that is open to …show more content…

“Don’t you think he would count himself happy for the change and pity the others?” (A Plato Reader, 465). I agree with what Socrates is saying in this quote, when one goes out of the cave and sees the light, it changes them for the better and this prisoner may begin to pity the others because they do not know that there is more to the world than they believe to know. Seeing the light made the prisoner realize that his views of reality were not all entirely true, making this prisoner never wanting to live down in the cave again. When this prisoner goes above the cave and sees the light, it only makes sense for him to want to go back down, only to tell the other cave dwellers what it is he saw above the cave. “…and as for anyone who tried to free the prisoners and lead them upward, if the could somehow get their hands on him, wouldn’t they kill him.” (A Plato Reader, 466). In this passage, Socrates describes how a prisoner who has been out of the cave wants to go down and tell all the prisoners still down there what is beyond the cave, he wants to teach them and get them to go above the cave. I see it as, there are always going to be people that do not want to go out of the cave or their “comfort zone” so when a prisoner who goes above the cave comes back down to try to get them out, the ones who do not want to leave, try to attack this person, or as Socrates says, kill him. I think its fair to get angry bout someone trying to force someone to do something that they do not want to

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