ipl-logo

Plato's Allegory Of The Cave Analysis

782 Words4 Pages
Plato, a well-known mathematician and a central figure in philosophy, laid the foundation stones of Western Philosophy (along with Socrates and Aristotle). Alfred North Whitehead once said, “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” Plato realises that in general, humanity can go on leading a life which is greatly understood. For example, he finds truth in his world of forms and thinks that the general populace can think, and speak, and may not even acknowledge any awareness of Plato’s world of forms. He explains his thoughts in the Allegory of The Cave which is presented as a fictional dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s brother. First, he likes all the people in the world to prisoners in a cave, bounded by heavy links of iron. They don’t move, they don’t turn their heads and do the required minimum to live. All they can ever see in their lifetime is one wall of the certain cave they live in. Behind these prisoners’ heads is a fire that projects shadows of moving objects on to the wall in front of them. These shadows are the closest thing they will ever see to reality. They hear sounds of the fire and entities behind their heads but because they can’t move their heads, they assume that they’re the sounds of the shadows. Socrates asks us to imagine what would happen if one prisoner is free and he escapes. At first, the light of the fire causes great difficulty to him but he slowly
Open Document