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.
Ap Language Summative Assesment Unit 1 Lamin Williams 9-12-16 4A Mrs. Archer In “ The Allegory of the Cave” 360 BCE, Plato emphasises that the cave explains human existence and envisions the world as a dark cave, and humans trapped as prisoners in that cave. Using symbolism he supports this statement by demonstrating to his students that our minds conceive the sources of shadows and the material world we live in as false truths. His purpose is directed towards his students, to help others out of the cave, to reveal the burden of false truths also know as the shadows. Plato uses a didactic tone to help his students understand and encourage them not to stay in the cave, but to free themselves and help others become free of the shadows the
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.
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.
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.
Imagine a small cave with a little tunnel of light leading out and hundreds (or thousands) of humans tied up so they can’t move. They’re tied up to some rocks, their arms and legs are bound and their head is tied so they cannot look at anything but the stonewall in a front of them. Behind them is a fire and between them is a raised walkway where people outside the cave walk along this walkway carrying various items on their heads; such as; animals, plants and wood. They begin to see shadows and in the midst of them seeing shadows they decide to create a game, who can guess what shadow comes next. If one gets it right they would praise him for being so clever.
Jon Smith Plato's allegory of the ace in both its literal and figurative sense is about how humans do not come to see the light of day until it is far too late in their lives to change their core rationing. Prisoners are fed narrow, one-sided beliefs during their existence in the cave, in which the chained men fail in maximizing life's offerrings. Plato likens the state of the prisoners in the cave as their legs and necks chained so that they can't move, only being able to look at what is in front of them. They chains on the neck make it physically impossible to explore an alternative line of vision, so the prsioners spend their day watching figures move behind a blazing fire. The ongoing figure-watching routine represents the immobile structure
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.
What if every known thing in the world turned out to be misguided? What if people within the world learned ways of life and adapted to environments only to find out that it was all a lie? In "The Allegory of the Cave" from Plato's "The Republic", the same questions were considered and analyzed by Socrates, the speaker of the story. The Philosopher Socrates explicates his allegory of great curiosity to Glaucon, a man of whom Socrates shares his wealth of wisdom with. Socrates' purpose in expressing the allegory is to show how the human race may not always see the truth but rather convince themselves that what they see is the truth. In other words, people allow themselves to believe what they would like to believe. As Socrates speaks, he has a questioning, curious and wise tone towards Glaucon, he speaks as if he does not even know the truth himself.
The world we are living in is changeable and unreliable. Nothing is permanent such as human body, buildings, plants and others. Even our senses of sight, touch and taste can decline. Plato believed that behind this unreliable world of appearances, there is a world of permanence and reliability. Plato calls it world of ‘Forms’ or ‘Ideas’.
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.
Plato was a mathematician and philosopher who believed highly in being knowledgeable. He believed geometry was required to be knowledgeable, which we see as a common theme in ancient history where geometry seems to be the base of all things. Through creating his own school, Plato was able to spread his view of knowledge through combining the skills of philosophy and mathematics. To Plato, mathematics was the finest training of the mind for the ideal state, hence it was indispensable for philosophers to not to study it. Despite this, Plato’s work in philosophy and theory -most notably through the Allegory of the Cave- is perhaps the true demonstration of how Plato sought out knowledge.
It never changes and yet causes the essential nature of things we perceive in the world. These two perceptions are what Plato describes as the divided line or the journey of self discovery. This progression of the spirit, that can never be reached, becomes the ideal. Plato’s discussions include the involvement of the soul. It is clear, that the main reason for dealing with the soul is to achieve this state
This makes Plato seem to be a fantastic source, it is full of discoveries and creativity, and it is not afraid to let know. For example in the Republic, he treats happinessas a state of perfection that is hard to comprehend because it is base don metaphysical presuppositions that seem hazy and imposible to be understood by ordinary thinkers. Then he comes up with this new theory about happiness, and how it is all inside each persons desire to fulfill his or her own desires. Trying to look for a safe place, and with safety, comes great happiness. It is said that Plato began with short dialogues, which questioned basic morals such as courage, justice, moderation and so on.
It was Plato’s way of stemming to the root of all human beings by insisting that they presented the same traits and functions as one another. In applying this concept, Plato assumed that every human being, just like the state they resided in, was made up of various distinctive traits, that took on specific roles to maintain. But Plato also disputed that there was little to no evidence of such a notion in an everyday sense of the meaning. As a human race, we constantly face choices of what to do, and in most cases, find ourselves at a crossroads to make certain decisions all at once. The only way we can distinguish these directions, is to categorize all the elements within ourselves.
