Plato's Famous Allegory Of The Cave

First of all, who is Plato? Plato was an ancient philosopher. It was speculated that he was born in 424 B.C.E and died in 348 B.C.E. He was a student of Socrates and a teacher to Aristotle. Plato was the founder of the Academy in Athens, which is one of the first institutions of higher learning. In this paper, I will explain in detail Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, what Plato believe is most real, what the good is, and how the allegory of the cave is related to education. Plato wanted to answer a philosophical question, what is the nature of reality? He uses his famous allegory of the cave to answer it. Plato is the author of the republic, which includes the allegory of the cave. Plato writes it as a dialogue between his brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates. Socrates starts out by telling Glaucon to imagine people living in a cave-like dwelling. They are prisoners or also known as cave dwellers. The dwelling has a wide entrance, so light can come in. These cave

His argument includes two realities. One reality in which we live and the other is a non-physical realm in which the forms exist. Plato argues that the non-physical forms represent the most accurate reality. A perfect form of a sphere is in this other reality we cannot see. In our world, it is just a copy of what we think a perfect sphere looks like, but it does not hit perfection. We know that he believes that forms are the most real because he uses an example in the allegory of the cave. An example is, the cave dwellers viewing the shadows cast on the wall while people are walking behind them holdings objects. While they look at the shadows they name them. They think the shadows are the real object, but they are mere reflection. In their world, they think that the shadow is real but in rea it is not. So, in our world, we look at an orange and we can see that it is a sphere, but a true perfect sphere is only in the other reality of