Greek Philosopher Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Allegory of the Cave- First Draft

The Allegory of the Cave is an extended analogy presented to us by the Greek Philosopher Plato. It is concerned with human perception of knowledge and truth. Plato believed that real knowledge can only be acquired through philosophical reasoning. In the Allegory, Plato portrays to the mistakes of people who mistake empirical knowledge for being the ultimate truth and differentiate them from people who have sought real knowledge. Plato believes that the society is like prisoners in a cave and one can only emancipate from its conventional beliefs by seeking knowledge outside the cave. Thus, the theory of Allegory of the cave can be interpreted from a political as it is open to many interpretations and touches many aspects of life.

The allegory of the cave is about three prisoners being chained in a cave in such a way that their arms, legs and heads are immobile and cannot look at anything else besides the wall of the cave in front of them. Behind the prisoners there is a fire and between the fire and the prisoners there is raised walkway, along which there is a low built wall. Everyday people and animals outside the cave walk across the walkway behind the wall carrying things on their head and their back respectively. While crossing the walkway, the footsteps of the people and the animals emit echo in the cave and the things they are carrying cast a shadow on the wall in front of the prisoners in the cave. For the prisoners the shadows that