ipl-logo

Plato's Cave Analysis

522 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Relating plato's allegory of the cave to reality

"Critically assess Plato 's Cave in terms of what it reveals about the nature of truth."

What is the truth. Plato defined the ultimate truth as “Aletheia”, which literally translated to mean “unhidden” or “that which does not remain unnoticed”. However, not all people’s thought are same. Oxford dictionary states that truth is “that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality” or “a fact or belief that is accepted as true”. As this, truth can be thought differently by people. Then what is the truth? By investigating through Plato’s Cave allegory, we will go to find out how truth is shown in Plato’s cave allegory and what is the truth.

What is the truth in the Plato’s cave allegory? The ‘Truth’ in Plato’s cave allegory can be divided into two. One is prisoners’ perspective and other is people except prisoner’s perspective. From prisoners’ perspective, the shadow on the cave wall is the only thing they believe as truth. Another tried to tell them the outside of the cave, but they thought that person as crazy, therefore refuse to become free. The prisoners were in their imagination shadow world with believing the shadow as truth because that is the only thing they knew. However, people except prisoners thought that their world and what is tangible are the truth. The world they are living now is what they have learn from when they are born. …show more content…

However, later one prisoner finds out that there is thing that is more realistic by looking at the sun and other objects and starting to believe that world out of the cave is the truth and shadow wasn’t the truth. Then wouldn’t there be more realistic world and this world we are living could not be the truth and another world that is more realistic could be the truth. Just as the shadow of an object is faded copy of the actual object, the world as we perceive it is insisting of perfect copy of the

Show More
Related
72 Words | 1 Pages

Society is often content with adhering to orders and often don't question the true essence of what they’re being told. Plato ventured towards this issue within his famous “The Allegory of the Cave” by using rhetorical devices such as metaphors to illustrate his message. Plato explores the philosophy of society in a particular structure that forces the reader to ponder on the mindset of a blind individual who finally sees the light.

Read More
773 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
968 Words | 4 Pages

Plato’s Allegory of the cave represents life/death/rebirth. Life/death/rebirth is a popular archetype that most authors use in fictional books. Plato’s Allegory of the cave begins with people that are locked in chains inside of a cave. The people inside the cave see shadows on the wall of animals and creatures that they think represents their life. This cave is an illusion of life that the people are experiencing.

Read More
504 Words | 3 Pages

Kristen Jakupak Epistemology Philosophy Paper October 5, 2015 Within Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and Descartes Meditation I, there are multiple similarities and differences in them. Reality is questionable within both of these stories. There is skepticism in them on whether they are truly living, and if it is real, or if it is controlled by something else entirely. In both stories, they also wanted to leave what they understood to be reality, to find what they thought and sensed to be the true reality.

Read More
1572 Words | 7 Pages

When one of the person is allowed to leave the cave and see the real world they don’t believe it. Even more when they return to the cave to tell the others. The others won’t believe the person that left because all they know is the shadows. That’s why Plato says “[…] that the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from darkness except by turning the whole body.” (Plato 750).

Read More
1373 Words | 6 Pages

In life, the world one lives in is always assumed to be the reality, without anyone questioning its credibility. As Iris Murdoch once said, “[People] live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. ”(Iris Murdoch Quotes). In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, prisoners are trapped in a cave and chained so that they are to face a wall and only see the shadows of objects that pass behind them.

Read More
595 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
569 Words | 3 Pages

Behind and above the prisoners is a fire. In between the prisoners and the fire is a raised stage where people are holding images of objects, which casts shadows on the wall the prisoners see. Later, Socrates talks about what happens if one of those men were to be freed of his chains and introduced to the world outside of the cave. The man would see that not only are the shadows not real, but are images of something else and conclude that what he took as truth in the cave wasn’t the complete truth. Socrates

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

Two truths can be contradictory, but that does not make them any less true. The truth is just the way people perceive, or want to perceive truth. Plato, a Greek philosopher from the Classical Greek era, wrote Allegory of the Cave. Allegory of the Cave is a great depiction of perception of the truth, and how the truth can be different for different people. What some people might find to be true can be false to others; however, both truths are as true as people make them.

Read More
606 Words | 3 Pages

#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.

Read More
338 Words | 2 Pages

Plato “The Cave”, symbolize the world. Our world is the underground den and mentally were in a dark cave. There are humans trapped as prisoners and others chained up which can only see shadows. As stated in the reading, facing the truth at first is frightening and many run back which I do agree on. Some people are not ready to face reality and rather just mentally stay in a dark cave.

Read More
836 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
337 Words | 2 Pages

we I see as perceive as the truth. The cave is symbolizes the politicians, advertisements, and the media in general which restrict me from the truth. I am a prisoner because I am not willing to question what I hear or see. As I read the allegory I began to ask myself questions such as “Is everything I see on the

Read More
836 Words | 4 Pages

In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato represents the questions of the true reality of the world, and it refers that we see things that are not even real. The Eye of the Beholder on the other hand talks about how individuals have their own opinion and perspective of things. Comparing the Allegory of the Cave

Read More
1159 Words | 5 Pages

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the people think that their entire reality is the shadows that they see on the walls of the cave. Plato explores the truth and criticizes that humanity does not question what is real. Plato explores that the human understanding and accepting of what is real is difficult and

Read More

More about Plato's Cave Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document