In this paper I will explain the allegory of the cave by Plato. After that I will then describe what it means to myself and then what it meant to Plato. Finally I will describe how appropriate Plato’s allegory is to reality. Hopefully after the reader reads this paper, they will have a better understanding of the Allegory of the Cave. The Allegory of the Cave helps people distinguish the truth about what reality really is. It is a cave in which three prisoners sit tied to rocks that way they can not move and are forced to look at the wall of the cave. The three people have been in the cave since birth so they do not really know what the outside world even really looks like. While they stare at the wall, people outside the cave are constantly walking by carrying objects causing shadows to be cast on to the wall of the cave. The prisoners have never seen these …show more content…
In my opinion, everyone sees reality differently from his or her perspective. Just like Plato believed, there are two different worlds that people can view their reality from with that either being the “real” world or “virtual” world. I believe the cave represents how people see life and when they escape the cave that is the actual reality of life. No one knows if we are experiencing actual reality or if we are being ran by a computer. Even though everyone has a different definition for knowledge, the overall explanation for knowledge is learning through facts or experience. There are people in the world that fear knowledge, but what many don’t understand is that the lack of knowledge actually causes fear. Yes the people in the caves knowledge would be considered different from mine today in that what they experienced in their reality I would never understand, and they would not get to understand what I am experiencing. No one can experience another’s reality in the fact that we cannot see what another’s reality experience actually
Kristen Jakupak Epistemology Philosophy Paper October 5, 2015 Within Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and Descartes Meditation I, there are multiple similarities and differences in them. Reality is questionable within both of these stories. There is skepticism in them on whether they are truly living, and if it is real, or if it is controlled by something else entirely. In both stories, they also wanted to leave what they understood to be reality, to find what they thought and sensed to be the true reality.
Is there a truer higher reality than what most people experience? This question can best be answered by examining the protagonist in both Allegory of the Cave by Plato and The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright. The answer to this question, is very complex as it includes the definition of reality, how to measure the terms truer and higher, and the consensus of people’s experiences. because there is no way to prove that there is a truer higher reality beyond what most people experience, this statement is false. While there are multiple definitions of reality, the most accurate is the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
The cave as a whole represents the visible realm. In the dialogue, the prisoners are chained so that they can only see what is in front of them and being depicted on the wall. “They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them,” (514b). A prisoner is freed and dragged outside the cave,
“The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato is about a group of prisoners that were chained up in a cave with their backs facing the exit of the cave, unable to see what was going on in the outside world. They occasionally would see shadows on the wall and would
In "The Machine Stops," people have put their entire faith in a machine which eventually lets them down, and Communication is made as a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine called the speaking apparatus, with which people conduct their only activity, they sharing ideas and knowledge. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato distinguishes between people who mistake sensory knowledge for the truth and people who do see the truth, the cave represents people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world empirical evidence. The cave shows that believers of empirical knowledge are trapped in a ‘cave’ of misunderstanding, Although, the prisoner managed to break his bonds and soon discovered that his reality was not what he thought it was and in “The Machine Stops," it’s a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Now they live in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell ', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the
When one of the person is allowed to leave the cave and see the real world they don’t believe it. Even more when they return to the cave to tell the others. The others won’t believe the person that left because all they know is the shadows. That’s why Plato says “[…] that the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from darkness except by turning the whole body.” (Plato 750).
In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato’s idea of the human who escaped the cave, but came back to tell about his learnings but the other people in the cave did not want to listen to him since they believed that the cave was the real truth and did not want to be educated about the outside
First off, one rhetoric that " The Allegory of the Cave" has is a metaphor. A metaphor is comparing two unlike things. The focal thought is, a few detainees were bolted into a give in and the couldn't escape. It speaks to that how much freedom is worth. In the event that you never had an opportunity to see the outside world, you just can envision what it resembles.
In life, the world one lives in is always assumed to be the reality, without anyone questioning its credibility. As Iris Murdoch once said, “[People] live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. ”(Iris Murdoch Quotes). In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, prisoners are trapped in a cave and chained so that they are to face a wall and only see the shadows of objects that pass behind them.
The person who releases the prisoners has been enlightened from the bonds of a false reality. The prisoners become completely free when they are realesed from their chains, and accept what things truly are, rather than what they had perceived them to be. The journey out of the cave represents a prisoners’ unwilllingness to change and a resistance to accept new truths. The prisoners have to force themselves out of the cave into this reality.
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
Plato tells of a group of prisoners held in a dark cave chained to the walls. These people have never stepped outside into the world and can only experience shadows that are displayed on the opposite side of the cave through the light outside of the cave. One of the slaves, now liberated steps outside of the cave and is able to experience reality, or what we can distinguish as objective truth. After returning to explain to the other what he has seen there seems to be quite a difference in opinions(Plato). In his article Plato’s Cave, T.F Morris attempts to dissect Plato’s allegory and explains his belief that “… the shadows on the wall of the cave correspond to what we call reality…(Morris 417)”
Plato’s Republic, Book 7, talks about the metaphor referred to as "the allegory of the cave. " This metaphor in philosophy is use to describe the importance and effect education or lack of education has on the human mind. In book VII, education is referred to as a light that brightens the different paths that exist in life. It helps open the human mind to things that it was unaware of. Another point made in book VII, was that by educating yourself you become less ignorant to what is out there in the world.
In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato uses a conversation between his former teacher and an unknown person named Glaucon to lay out this deep and complex extended metaphor. This intricate metaphor is a step by step representation of how one could achieve true comprehension of the world around them. In this, there are four stages one must complete. The first stage is when the people are shackled in the cave, and he/she is required to use imagination to come to conclusions about the realities of life. When the ex-captives break away from the manacles and see the light from inside the cave is known as the second phase, and this is where one tries to define instead of imagine.
They are tied in such a way that they are unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. The prisoners are chained since their childhood and have not seen the outside world ever. Behind them burns a fire. In between the fire and the prisoners there is a small path which is used by the people.