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Allegory of the cave appearance and reality
Plato's allegory of the cave reality
Plato's allegory of the cave reality
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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.
Experiencing a new discovery leads to a better understanding of life. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, it explains how a group of prisoners are inside a dark cave looking at shadows believing it to be realistic; however, one prisoner gets free and leaves the cave and experience the outside world seeing real nature and the brightness of the sun and adjust to it. That person returns back to the cave to tell what he had experienced outside the cave to the other prisoners as the other prisoners would not listen to him and neglect his words. That person however cannot adjust to the darkness inside the cave once he got adjusted to the brightness of the outside world. Like Plato’s allegory of the cave, good living does require us to leave the cave.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave was an interpretation of the aversion humans have to things that are outside of their experienced reality, as well as a proposed solution. Firstly, I can’t help but notice that there is a racist, classist, sexist, and ableist element to Plato’s proposal. Allegory of the Cave is found within The Republic, which is a book that describes “the education required of a Philosopher-King”. Racial minorities, poor people, women, and disabled people are all immediately eliminated from the selection of potential candidates.
In the reason stage, the individual uses philosophical dialect to create a hypothesis, then using only the hypothesis the individual arrives at his conclusion. This is basically the process of how the individual reaches full understanding of the Form of the Good. This is the highest form of knowledge an individual can reach, and those who reach this stage have proven that their desires are pure because only the true philosopher can desire strictly truth and knowledge. Thus, this specific philosopher is the only type of king that can rule justly and reasonably.
The story Plato, The Allegory of the Cave, has influenced and impacted many people in present day today as well as in history. Humans today, believe that the educational system is a process which the younger generation needs to follow, leaving a variety of paths in which a student can take. Today, the norm is to follow the educational system; elementary, middle and high school and after having twelve years of education, you must then attend a minimum of two to four years in a college or university. However, who came up with this education system and what is the actual goal of gaining education and knowledge. Back in 428-347 B.C. ,The Republic by Plato; Book VII is where the document is found.
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.
Classical liberalism, the term in politics, is a retrospective of distinguishing to old liberalism from new liberalism in the early 19th century. It is which it believed that the government that governed least governed best. Until now, it was referred to all forms of liberalism, such as social liberalism or economic liberalism, prior to the arrival of liberals and conservatives. Compared to liberalism, classical liberalism assumed that individuals are rational and capable of overcoming obstacles without resorting to violence. In philosophy, classical liberalism separately protects the freedom as well as property rights.
In Plato's Allegory of the Cave a conversation is taking place between Socrates and Glaucon. the conversation is meant to discuss human perception Socrates attempts to explain that human perception is only what we can obtain through the senses. Plato explains that the senses are only a part of the whole picture and that concrete perception alone is never the entire story. This can explain human error in perceiving scientific and philosophic notions in his time as well as in today's life. Plato explains to Glaucon a situation of prisoners in a cave who have only been exposed to very dim lighting there entire lives and have not been exposed to other people or even looked upon each other.
Are we crazy living our lives through a lense? Why are we too comfortable living in a bubble that we cannot see the trouble. Do we really know what life is about if we stay under the radar. Plato, a Greek philosopher writes a story about how humanity is trapped inside of its own reality. He tells us how we trap ourselves in our own darkness afraid to look another way.
In Plato’s Republic where Plato was receiving the philosophical lessons about education from his teacher Socrates, the analogy of the cave was an impressive approach to convey that people believe what they see with their sight without further thinking about whether it’s actually what it is assumed to be. They also tend to be satisfied with being ignorant than being exposed to the truth because the truth is just difficult to experience. It can be painful. That’s why teachers like philosophers are there to open our blindfolds and lead us to light.
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.
Plato discussed a two layer view of what he perceived as reality; the world of becoming and the world of being. The world of becoming is the physical world we perceive through our senses. In the physical world there is always change. The world of being is the world of forms, or ideas. It is absolute, independent, and transcendent.
Also, outside the cave realm, people were engaged in their daily work; however, a wall had been built between these two worlds and restricted the cavemen from seeing the world. They could only see the shadows of people along the wall and accepted those shadows as the reality (Plato, trans. 1997, p. 514b-515b). This masterpiece of Plato is one of the most famous and perceptive assay to illustrate the nature of reality. The cave stands for the state of most human beings, and the tale of escape from the cave is the origin of the true understanding. In this composition, Plato believes that the world is made up of two parts; the forms, and the reality.
Are we always at the mercy of others and our own experiences? Are the truths we cling to always reality? Are we ever truly free or are we always prisoners in our own mind? These are some of the questions that went through my mind while reading Plato’s allegory of the cave. Through them I’ve come to understand one of the biggest themes in this allegory is our ability to “shackle” ourselves mentally, but also our ability to free ourselves if only we have the courage.
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
