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Analyzing plato's allegory of the cave
Analyzing plato's allegory of the cave
Analyzing plato's allegory of the cave
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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.
Experiencing a new discovery leads to a better understanding of life. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, it explains how a group of prisoners are inside a dark cave looking at shadows believing it to be realistic; however, one prisoner gets free and leaves the cave and experience the outside world seeing real nature and the brightness of the sun and adjust to it. That person returns back to the cave to tell what he had experienced outside the cave to the other prisoners as the other prisoners would not listen to him and neglect his words. That person however cannot adjust to the darkness inside the cave once he got adjusted to the brightness of the outside world. Like Plato’s allegory of the cave, good living does require us to leave the cave.
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.
How does a 2,000-year old story relate to the life of being in the military during basic training? Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” represents what humans believe and perceive as reality. However, this reality is just an illusion of the real world. Furthermore, Plato describes this type of life in vivid detail; the way people get lost in their own world, not knowing what is on the other side. After all is said and done, my time spent in basic training parallels with the experience of Plato’s prisoner in the allegory.
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a metaphor for education, and every object and character represents something in the education system. The cave itself, where the prisoners live, is a question of reality. Furthermore, the cave may symbolize a school, as students learn everything in school like the prisoners learned everything in the cave. The puppeteers are teachers because they teach and control the prisoners like teachers teach and control students. The prisoners are the students because the prisoners are stuck in the cave and learn from the puppeteers like students must attend school and learn from teachers.
In Plato’s The Apology of Socrates, Socrates speaks of a friend of his, Chaerephon. One day, Chaerephon, who believed Socrates to be the wisest of men choose to prove his belief by asking the oracle of Delphi if there was anyone wiser than Socrates. In response the oracle replied that there was no man wiser than Socrates. After trying to find someone wiser than himself, Socrates concluded that, “If I am the wisest of men, it is only because, whereas other men think they know when they do not, I know that I don’t know.” On the surface this statement is considered confusing because while he is claiming to be wise he is also claiming to be ignorant.
The meaning and comprehension of life has been a common topic to debate about for a very long time. Philosophers still don’t fully understand the bigger picture of life, but to see a bigger picture, you have to first at all of the small pictures that make up the big picture. In Plato’s story, “Allegory of the Cave”, he has written a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon about one of these smaller pictures. It talks about unintelligent and intelligent people, the idea of good, leadership, and some other topics. With all this supporting the main theme, it is the idea of intelligence and knowledge and how it is linked to society.
The Allegory of the Cave describes a series of events in the form of an extended metaphor. Education and the effects on one’s life is commonly displayed throughout the book. Plato describes the series of events with an analogy between vision and education. Plato was an eminent figure in the realm of philosophy: also fabricating the 1st university in western history. Plato’s philosophy was that people see the world as a duplicate and not reality.
Plato’s, “The Allegory of The Cave” talks about the different areas of philosophy containing metaphysics, epistemology, etc. It also includes Plato’s theory about the World of Forms. Plato’s Allegory is a metaphor that compares and contrasts the way in which we perceive and accept what is real. He suggests that people are trapped by their inability to accept things they aren’t familiar with. The prisoners in his allegory have a specific mindset that is accustomed to what they know and what they have seen (the shadows).
#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.
He symbolizes this “ignorance” with the cave itself. In the text we can clearly see the division between realities, between visible and intelligible orders. Plato creates the allegory of the cave only to refer to the world of appearances. This myth explains, men would be prisoners chained in a dark cave and that, because of being in such an uncomfortable situation, they can only see what they have in from of them that are, the shadows of other men, that’s because of a fire they have behind them, but they could not see . Having no other way of perceiving the world, those shadows would be for them their only reality.
The Myth of the Cave In the Myth of the Cave Plato is having Socrates describe a group of people whom are called prisoners, that have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives. While the prisoners are chained up they are facing a blank wall. The prisoners watch shadows that seem to be projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them. For fun the prisoners decided to give the shadows names.
Plato discussed a two layer view of what he perceived as reality; the world of becoming and the world of being. The world of becoming is the physical world we perceive through our senses. In the physical world there is always change. The world of being is the world of forms, or ideas. It is absolute, independent, and transcendent.
Enlightenment itself is a concept that cultures around the world believe in and how people can master this concept. Enlightenment is an elevated understanding of life and learning how one may remove any negativity from their life. Societies view enlightenment as important because it helps people understand any and all forms of negativity never promote happiness and prosperity. One piece of literature that vividly shows this concept is Plato’s, “Allegory of the Cave.” Plato highlights how Socrates converses with Glaucon about how the man who reaches the light at the end of the cave would be free from negativity; the man discovers the truth which leads him to enlightenment.
The emergence from the cave is an enlightenment of intellectualism, when all the difficulties and confusion of life is gone and only reality exists. Plato uses the shadow of fire as a metaphor for intelligence. The people who emerged out of the brightness represent truth; the freed prisoner. The chained prisoner would “look towards the firelight; all this would hurt him, and he would be too much dazzled to see distinctly those things whose shadows he had seen before”(Plato
