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Socrates Allegory Of The Cave

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Socrates’ “allegory of the cave” represents the conflict between education and the nature of man. In the cave, the people are exposed to new knowledge and shown the light, however as they are shackled to the caves walls they are limited by what they see and choose to believe. The darkness in the cave represents the unknown or a lack of complete understanding, while the light illustrates the truth and education. The light projects itself in the cave producing castings against the walls. Meanwhile, these shadows that the prisoners see in the caves depict their perceptions of how the interpret the images. These shadows ‘trap’ the men by disguising the truth behind their false certainty. Humans make up a society where they gain their knowledge …show more content…

In each metaphorical cave there is a chance to be educated to learn from new discoveries, and let the light guide us, along with the possibilities of misguided perceptions or shadows. In Socrates’ “allegory of the cave”, Socrates and Glaucon discuss whether the prisoners will see the items passing them as truth or if they will believe that what they learned in the past ss the truth. They concluded that even if they are “to look at light itself” they will disregard what they are shown and believe what they have perceived prior (515e). This disregarding often occurs in modern day, especially during debate. Even when someone is given facts, they are likely to disregard them in order to fully support their opinions. Nature controls humans over the possibility to educate them. It is in man’s nature to stand by one’s beliefs which makes men more likely to avoid becoming enlightened. The light in the cave burns the eyes of the men chained to the walls. In our society, the truth fails to help our cause which also leads to men disregarding the truth. The separation of beliefs leads to the formation of factions. The factions are groups that share dissenting opinions. Our modern society has many factions that all believe in different beliefs. Socrates explains factions as the result of many educated rulers possessing different perceptions of the shadows they see (520d). There are many just men

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