Plato's Simile Of The Cave

Plato and Hegel both emphasized that ideas and ideology were the forces behind social, cultural, and political change.

Plato 's Republic Book Seven, discusses the Simile of the Cave. On the surface, The Simile of the Cave is about an individual breaking free of his chains from the cave to which he is accustomed to and being outside of the cave and being dazzled by the sunshine. Looking deeper, Plato is emphasizing the role education has on individuals. In the society Plato lives in, the population is divided into three components: commoners, soldiers, and Philosopher-Kings. Children were taken from their parents at birth and raised together. The purpose of this was driven by the idea of eugenics which would create the ideal society, which to Plato would be ruled by Philosopher-Kings. This links back to the Simile of the Cave, which the subject who left the cave is the Philosopher-King and that they have the responsibility to rule over their fellow men. To Plato, only those who are educated in "the principles of good government" (264) should be in power, thus Philosophers have the qualifications to be a leader in Greek society because they seek knowledge outside of the material realm. Plato, in book ten of Republic , discusses the negative influence art and poetry has on rational souls. This is where he introduces his analogy of

To which the economy influences these aspects of society. Marx, comparatively to Plato and Hegel, emphasizes material reality over the ideal reality. Individual consciousness comes from the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. To Marx, the ideas of the bourgeoisie that trickles down to the proletariats, are from the "dominant material relationships" (169) in society. In summary, Marx inverts Plato and Hegel 's ideologies by rejecting the concept of God and that it is only human nature that drives