Plato compares a number of things in this essay- the material world to the world of ideas, the life of the mind to work of governing, silver and gold to virtue and wisdom. How does he use his comparisons to make his arguments? 2.)Plato creates the Allegory of the Cave to be a conversation between his mentor Socrates and one of his student Glaucon. Plato sets the story to demonstrate that the “blinded” prisoner or in a more cultural sense the men of iron. The Greeks created 4 classes of civilization the gold,silver,bronze and the iron.
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.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave was an interpretation of the aversion humans have to things that are outside of their experienced reality, as well as a proposed solution. Firstly, I can’t help but notice that there is a racist, classist, sexist, and ableist element to Plato’s proposal. Allegory of the Cave is found within The Republic, which is a book that describes “the education required of a Philosopher-King”. Racial minorities, poor people, women, and disabled people are all immediately eliminated from the selection of potential candidates.
In this short essay, I will be writing about my personal thoughts about the “system” and how it relates perfectly to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The first point I would like to address is our learning system. From a very young age, we are placed in a room with other children learning the exact same material, the exact same way, from a teacher who was also taught the same exact way when they were younger. To me, this is society’s way of “manufacturing” their future working adults.
Plato’s Republic, Book 7, talks about the metaphor referred to as "the allegory of the cave. " This metaphor in philosophy is use to describe the importance and effect education or lack of education has on the human mind. In book VII, education is referred to as a light that brightens the different paths that exist in life. It helps open the human mind to things that it was unaware of. Another point made in book VII, was that by educating yourself you become less ignorant to what is out there in the world.
Allegory of the Cave- First Draft The Allegory of the Cave is an extended analogy presented to us by the Greek Philosopher Plato. It is concerned with human perception of knowledge and truth. Plato believed that real knowledge can only be acquired through philosophical reasoning. In the Allegory, Plato portrays to the mistakes of people who mistake empirical knowledge for being the ultimate truth and differentiate them from people who have sought real knowledge. Plato believes that the society is like prisoners in a cave and one can only emancipate from its conventional beliefs by seeking knowledge outside the cave.
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.
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.
Plato wrote “Allegory of the Cave” in The Republic. This is a story about the growth of an individual from ignorance into an educated leadership role. Plato describes a cave in which there are several prisoners. They are chained at the neck, arms, and legs. They cannot see behind them or even to the side of them to glance at one another.
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” we are told of prisoners who spent their entire lives in a cave, chained to the floor. In the dark cave the only thing that the prisoners get to see are shadows cast by figures behind them, and they take these figures as the real thing because this is all they’ve ever seen. These prisoners represent humans, and our boring, unadventurous lives where we perform the same the same routines daily. Through this story, Plato is trying to tell us that we need to break this habit because there is more out there than what we do. He’s trying to tell us that we’re just alive and not actually living our lives to their full potential.
One of Plato’s most popular works is the Allegory of the Cave. In the allegory, Socrates is conversing with Glaucon about citizens who live in a cave, chained to the wall. These prisoners are sitting with their backs facing the cave opening. Between the cave opening and the people, there is a fire. Between the fire and the people, there is a low wall where other people who are not chained are holding up statues which are casting shadows on the wall of cave where the prisoners are looking.
“The Matrix” can be compared to the Plato’s allegory of the cave as they have similar phylosophical principals which can be associated with todays society however at the same time they adress multiple problems which can be analysed seperately to bring different conclusions. These two very famous ideas which are from totally different eras ,are the fundemetnal core of the todays world thinking. We are usually unaware of the connection with these theories on the daily basis, as they are very complex and not really utalized by an average person in real life situations. The first step in proper understanding the wold around us and what we expereince following the Plato’s allegory right trough and using its rules to point out the phylosophical
#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.
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.
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.
