Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

In Book XII of “The Republic,” also called The Allegory of the Cave, Plato paints a detailed picture of the process in what it is to become enlightened. As humans we have limited perceptions of reality and we mistake these perceptions as truth and goodness. Plato tells us that what we are actually seeing are mere shadows of their true forms and is very clear in his point that traversing to the world of enlightenment is both difficult and painful. Not only that, but there will be those out there that are unwilling to seek this truth and seem to prefer the shadows. Plato asks us to examine ourselves and our beliefs and ask if these beliefs are biased or based on our own prejudices. It seems as though people today are like those chained and forced

The two men are regarded as being responsible for the founding of western philosophy. Socrates did not leave any of his own writings and was noted as saying that living was more important than recording for posterity. However, Plato and others wrote enough of his teachings that it is not difficult to reconstruct most of his life. Plato refers to Socrates in a lot of his own writings and sometimes wrote down entire debates between Socrates and his students. Due to the fact that most of Socrates teaching came through Plato’s teachings many modern philosophers are unsure if Plato may have used Socrates as a representative of his own views. The Allegory of The Cave is an example of such an occurrence. Plato describes a conversation between his own brother, Glaucon, and

He is immediately blinded by the light of being in the outside world. As his eyes adjust, he is first able to look at shadows, next the reflections of objects and men, and finally the objects themselves. These objects are even more real than the statues and figures he saw before. He now understands that what he sees now are the real objects and that the objects in the cave were just copies of these. The prisoner looks to the sky and can now see the sun. He realizes in its magnificence that the sun is the cause of all things. The light, his ability to see the world, the plants and seasons. The sun represents the form of Good. The former prisoner is now in the form of