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Socrates 'Cave Allegory'

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Enlightenment When Socrates argues that, “the unexamined life is not worth living”, he means that living a life where you don’t know the truth about reality isn’t worth it. A life where someone is enlightened is a life worth living. Socrates sees everything as having a mere layer that disguises the truth of the real important things in life. To uncover the truth, Socrates explains that you have to live an examined life. He does this by questioning everything and everyone in order to find truth and virtue. He believes that by examining yourself, you will understand and know yourself more, leading to living an enlightened life. Also, by self examining and looking for your purpose and importance, you can reach your life's full potential. Questioning …show more content…

In the “Cave Allegory” there are cave dwellers who are forced to only look at a wall, which displays shadows of objects carried by people who pass by a huge fire behind them. To these prisoners, these shadows are their reality, their truth. They do not know that they are mere shadows. In the story, when one of the cave dwellers is forced out of the cave into the light, he is disoriented because of how bright it is outside. Once he gets accustomed to the light, he explores and is then enlightened about the truth. He has seen how life really is and found that he has been living a lie. He would much rather live this life, this life of truth, than be living a lie in the cave. He wants the other cave dwellers to know the truth. Once the cave dweller tries to tell the others about the truth, they call him off as a fool and possibly even gets …show more content…

Before Socrates became enlightened with all this knowledge, he was just like the cave dwellers who could only stare at the wall. But the more and more he examined life, he became the enlightened prisoner. Socrates has found the truth of life and wants to enlighten others in Athens about what he has learned. Along with him living a life full of knowledge and truth, he wants others to do the same. In the process of trying to do this, Socrates offended some ignorant people of high authority, who do not like to be condescended. He was seen as a fool, like the cave dweller, and charged with impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. In the Apology, Socrates was put on trial and he tried to enlighten the jury and make them understand his way of life. The jury was not convinced and Socrates was then sentenced to death. Socrates stood by his way of life all the way to his death. He had mentioned during the trial that he too would rather die, like Achilles did, then be forced to stop searching for the truth and living an examined

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Men refuse to see the light of truth, because they do not comprehend anything of it. Many times within the image of the cave, the men are shown to get accustomed to something, and then to run

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With those two teachings, comes another one of his more deeply meaningful quotes “an unexamined life is not worth living for a human being”. This statement by Socrates is one that gets a human being to think about what he meant by what an examined life or unexamined life is. His quote is telling people to go through life and analyze and question things, because if not they have not lived life the way it should be for a human being. Without examining life, life would become a stagnant environment, never evolving from past cultures and past ideals.

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As a young child you are the person who escaped the cave. Although, as we grow up we begin to transform into the prisoners in the cave as our creativity ceases to exist and we begin to conform to the ways of society. Everything we know and believe is solely dependent on what others tell us, similarly to the prisoners in the cave, because

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Socrates effectively conveys the cave as a symbol for how complacent the world has become as a result of his imagery. People are okay with staying in the cave and not going out into the real world, despite the exciting news are told from those who have been freed. By not going out into the real world, the truth can never be revealed to the prisoners, they would rather judge others for making up supposedly false stories. People becoming complacent to their own norms and hiding from the truth holds them back from developing beautiful experiences, which is why Socrates shares his story with Glaucon. The world needs to come out of the

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Behind and above the prisoners is a fire. In between the prisoners and the fire is a raised stage where people are holding images of objects, which casts shadows on the wall the prisoners see. Later, Socrates talks about what happens if one of those men were to be freed of his chains and introduced to the world outside of the cave. The man would see that not only are the shadows not real, but are images of something else and conclude that what he took as truth in the cave wasn’t the complete truth. Socrates

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Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” starts off with the description of three prisoners bound in a way that they cannot move or look in any direction besides the wall directly in front of themselves. The prisoners were born in the cave and have never left it. Behind the prisoners there is a fire with a walkway between them and it. People walk on the walkway carrying things like plants, wood, stone, and animals, the things they carry cast a shadow on the wall. The prisoners have never seen the actual object, just the shadow the object casts.

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Socrates started his life as an average Athen citizen. His parents worked, making an honest living. But as Socrates grew up, he began to realize that his mind questioned things and wondered how come no one else questioned the same things or at least think about the answers to the questions that were not answered. So, as his mind kept wandering, he began to acknowledge the questions that were not answered and sought for those answers. He ended up believing and teaching things to other people, whether it went against the way the Athen government or not, he still continued his work.

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p. 67). The focus of his study revolved around the human aspect of life rather than nature, moreover, Socrates felt knowledge was power placing a high importance on the psyche. This method of building the psyche was reached through challenging debates as well as stimulating conversations, Socrates felt was the key to obtaining a powerful psyche. This thought process led Socrates to believe the more one knew the more moral they would be, meaning knowledgeable individuals were less likely to be immoral compared to those with little knowledge. The Athenians did not like all the questions Socrates asked, they felt he was undermining their

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All they have ever seen is the wall in front of them and the shadows the puppeteers behind them cast. All the prisoners know is the cave and its shadows and finally when one of them is free and able to leave the cave he cannot believe this other reality he is seeing. The sun, the water, his own reflection, he is shocked by this new world and starts to question everything. The cave and its shadows were his truth and now this alternate reality is hard for him to believe. The prisoner in Plato's allegory struggles to adjust when he first learns about this new reality, but he eventually understands after seeing with his own eyes.

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There are puppeteers in the cave who cast shadows of objects with a fire that later become a construct of reality for them. Eventually, one of the prisoners were able to break out of the chains and escaped. As he leaves the cave, he is blinded by the sun, however, adjusted to this new world. He is amazed as he sees everything more clearly. He discovers the true beauty and meaning of life as he explores more of the world.

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Socrates is quoted as stating, “An unexamined life is a life not worth living” (38 a). Socrates was a founding figure of western philosophy, and a stable for many ideas. He lived in Athens, Greece teaching his students, like Plato, questioning politics, ethical choices, and many other things in Greek society. In the Trial and death of Socrates: Four Dialogues by Plato, it explores the abstract questioning Socrates had towards many of the normal social properties, which led to his trial, resulting in his death. The most important aspects discussed in the dialogues is the questioning of what is pious and impious, what it means to be wise, and good life.

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In the allegory, a group of prisoners are lives in the cave since birthday. They are chained back to the entrance of the cave with bonds and they cannot move and even turn their head, in order to see what happens in an outside of their world. (514a–b) However, they can see shadows, which appears on the wall. Prisoners give the names to shadows and learn them.

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Therefor, in this case, the prisoner need to forget their sensory perception that the “shadows” are the reality and break out of their “chains” that restrains their freedom to learn and the freedom to get out of the cave. Even if one of the prisoners manages to get a spiritual perception and learn the reality, they can not convince the others that their perception of the world is false. These descriptions combined helps the author explain furthermore his thesis and show that most humans perception is sensory and are stuck in a dark cave with no clue of the reality of the outer

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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.

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