The Philosophy Of Plato's The Simile Of The Cave

Platonism, rendered as a proper noun, is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In narrower usage, Platonism, rendered as a common noun (with a lower case ‘p’, subject to sentence case), refers to the philosophy that affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to “exist” in a “third realm” distinct both from the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness. Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects, where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view .
Platonism was originally expressed

It points out a need for a population to be more conversant and educated, and not satisfied with mere appearances of the truth. The dialogue questions ‘what is real?’ How most of us wander through life not questioning nor knowing the absolute truth, the power of enlightenment. The central premise of ‘The Simile of the Cave’ can be deduced from Plato’s first words in the dialogue “I want you to go on to picture the enlightenment of ignorance of our human conditions” in which essentially Plato is stating that in modern terms ‘ignorance is bliss’ holds true. Plato sets out a picture of what would happen if we as human beings where to be enlightened to a world that we’ve never come to know due to our deceptive perceptions of the ‘real world’. Plato refers to ‘prisoners’ as men trapped underground in a ‘cave’ where they are shackled down, enabled to turn their heads side to side, only able to look straight at the ‘puppet show’ which is being constructed through a ‘curtain wall’ where shadows are shown to them of animals, men, and other items. Plato questions, how could they see anything else if they were prevented from moving their heads all their lives? As these prisoners go by appearances, they take the objects as they appear; only based on sight and hearing as they are unable to see the objects from different

The freed prisoner would finally uncover he was living a life of deception as he only lived to see shadows of mere images of real things until now. The process of coming to know reality would be a ‘difficult’ and ‘painful’ transition as his first instinct would be to cling on to what his familiar with, and withdraw back into the cave. Therefore the prisoner would need to be dragged out of living in the darkness in order to see the light of day. The prisoner would inevitably be overwhelmed by the brightness however he will need to grow accustomed to the light before he could see things outside the cave and will then have more knowledge of what is real such as imperfections of human life to the forms of goodness. After discovering reality with his new found wisdom he would eventually think back to life trapped in the cave and therefore would ultimately congratulate himself on his good fortune and would feel sorry for the prisoners still chained down in the darkness. However If he were to return to the cave he may feel like a serf in the house of some landless man as he would no longer be able to live nor think like them as his now seen the light, he would prefer anything to a life like theirs. The other prisoners in the cave would disregard his experience and find it absurd as they have only believed in