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Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

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One of Plato’s most popular works is the Allegory of the Cave. In the allegory, Socrates is conversing with Glaucon about citizens who live in a cave, chained to the wall. These prisoners are sitting with their backs facing the cave opening. Between the cave opening and the people, there is a fire. Between the fire and the people, there is a low wall where other people who are not chained are holding up statues which are casting shadows on the wall of cave where the prisoners are looking. The prisoners see the shadows as being actual beings, and that is their reality. One day, the shadow casters bring one prisoner outside and show him the real world. The sun is blinding to the prisoner, but once he sees the outside he is aware that the life he has been living is all a lie. The prisoner is taken back to the cave where he …show more content…

The other prisoners refuse to believe him, and threaten to have him killed for wanting to take them out of the cave. There are many obvious allegorical themes in Plato’s story. The prisoners are living in a state of ignorance and denial. This is meant to represent modern society. The cave itself is a representation of the human physical world. This is where people go about their daily lives unquestioning authority. Since the fire and the puppeteers in the story influence the opinions of the prisoners, the puppeteers can be seen as the media and what people today are being told. People believing everything they are told on television can be seen as the shadow makers casting shadows on the wall. The prisoner being freed and taken into the real

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Plato’s Cave portrays prisoners captive in a cave and forced to look at the shadows projected on the wall in front of them for their entire life, until one

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Since they could not move their heads, the shadows produced by the puppeteers are all the prisoners can perceive. They accept these images to be the truth, rather than just shadowy representations of what is actually in existence. In Plato’s theory, the cave represents people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world – empirical evidence. The raised wall and chains symbolize the limitations in our thinking. The cave shows that believers of empirical knowledge are trapped in a ‘cave’ of misunderstanding when Socrates proposes the question- what if one of the prisoners was to be freed and “compelled to turn his neck around and

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The “Allegory of the Cave” has meaning in our lives today and how we grow and prosper as people of knowledge. Specifically, Plato uses an allegory because it makes the

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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.

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Plato’s story the allegory of the cave identifies life and societies modern day shackles of the mind. Nowadays for example many objects shackle the mind like religion/ cults, drugs or alcohol, money, family issues or mental illness .Religion / cults can shackle the mind especially when people are raised and almost forced into believing in this religion. Doing drugs and alcohol are another big shackle because of addiction and the popularity of doing drugs and drinking alcohol. Money is a huge shackle to mind and to the society. Having money is a struggle that can hold people by having to much or not enough.

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First off, one rhetoric that " The Allegory of the Cave" has is a metaphor. A metaphor is comparing two unlike things. The focal thought is, a few detainees were bolted into a give in and the couldn't escape. It speaks to that how much freedom is worth. In the event that you never had an opportunity to see the outside world, you just can envision what it resembles.

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The Allegory of the Cave is a brilliant writing by Plato that really puts into perspective how we are living as a part of a materialistic and consumer society. The darn thing was written almost 2,500 years ago, and considering the fact that the allegory is still relevant today, Plato’s allegory is surprisingly very close to what contemporary society is like. His arguments are undoubtedly strong since he patches all his arguments well to lower any possibilities of counter arguments, but there is still room for doubt. Also, even with those weaknesses, the prisoners in the allegory are still indisputably similar to the people of today, and the cave doubtlessly like the modern society. In this essay, I will discuss some of Plato’s strength and weaknesses in his arguments as well as how the allegory still applies to the current people and society.

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"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”.

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Behind these people is a raging fire. In between the fire and the group is a barrier. There are puppeteers hiding behind this barrier, holding their puppets above their heads to cast shadows onto the wall that the people are facing. These shadows are all that the prisoners know. They believe that the shadows are reality, that they are the truth.

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However, what we are evaluating now is just how gooodness takes place in the metaphor. In the allegory, the outside of the cave is the place where he reaches forms. The world of forms stands for reality in which everything is endless and perfect, whereas the cave represents just the copy of reality and all the things inside it changeable and imperfect. In the allegory, the concept of the good has its place in the centre of the metaphor. In order to explain the good, Plato uses the image of the Sun.

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In this drawing, the puppeteers use their skill in creating shadows through manipulating light on the wall of the cave. They use the shadows to persuade the prisoner into believing the shadows are real. The shadow in this scenario represents the lies, fabrication, falsehood, and delusion believe by the uneducated men. For instance, as part human

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True the prisoners in the cave were shackled in the cave from childhood as said in part one of the allegory, and hopefully we’ve never experienced something like that in our lives but the allegory never states that they never had the opportunity to escape. After the released prisoner came back and told them what he saw, they chose to stay in the cave. They persecuted him and he was, “exposed to ridicule,” as it states in part three. They were fearful and considered his ‘enlightened’ state not worth it if he could no longer see the shadows. Instead of taking his words as truth, they disregarded them and perhaps for the first time were responsible for their shackled state.

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Plato’s short story the Allegory of the Cave, Plato portrays a scene in a cave to the reader that analyzes human actions. The story is about a group of men that are chained for their entire life. The only thing they are exposed to are shadows on the wall of a fire burning by people behind them. The people exposing these men are hiding the truth of the outside world. Plato reveals that humans are easily fooled into believing what they see.

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