Summary Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Of all of his works, one of Plato’s most famous is The Republic, which is a lengthy book that covers outlines several different societal aspects such as, the ideal form of government, the acquisition of wisdom, and the definition of justice. These are all lofty goals as each of the aforementioned categories could be considered subjective, as each person could find a different form of government to be ideal, or have a different opinion of what justice is to them. One of the most famous chapters from The Republic is commonly known as “The Allegory of the Cave,” in which Socrate’s shows Glaucon the effects of education. Plato outlines the process of education through the tale of a group of prisoners that for the entirety of their existence have

In the latter part of the allegory, Plato advocates for the appointment of a philosopher to rule over all of society saying. “Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.” Plato feels that in having a philosopher as a ruler is the ideal form of government for many reasons. Firstly, the philosophers of the time lead a heavily examined life deprived of culture and thriving on self-education. In describing the ideal philosopher king Plato feels that being deprived of culture is important as they “are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them.” The governments of Classical Greece were not fond of philosophers through their teachings, they challenged the values that society held so dearly. for example, Socrates was put to death on charges of atheism and corrupting the youth, however, the only crime he could be convicted of was pushing the Athenian elite out of their comfort