ipl-logo

Ignorance In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

1425 Words6 Pages

Most people have been told that “Ignorance is bliss” but has anyone ever questioned if it actually is? It is not, ignorance is never as blissful as it seems. Ignorance can be compared to being trapped in a prison of someone’s own mind where no man is ever truly free; he will always be imprisoned either by ignorance or by education. Authors such as Plato, Fredric Douglass, and Sherry Turkle all have faced bouts of ignorance, but have overcome them through the want and drive to learn.
Throughout Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” there is an internal struggle within the protagonist to escape from the only place he once knew as home just to find out that is like out of the cave. Within the cave it is extremely censored on what the people/prisoners are able to see and the only way they are shown anything is through shadow images that are projected upon the cave walls. They are shown manipulated images of birds, people, and other objects which in turn scares them into staying within the cave. The protagonist was determined to escape the cave to discover what was the real reality and truth outside of the cave. He was able to escape and see the light of the sun and was able to see what is really true. Plato states “He would first see the sun and the reason about him.”(212) which means once he …show more content…

He writes about it in his article “Learning how to Read and Write” where he goes on discussing working as a slave but being taught by his mistress. He goes to say that she wanted to teach him how to read to help him one day push him towards being free. Douglass’s mistress in return of seeing him start to catch on and succeed with his teachings became resentful and regretful after teaching him. She sought out to make Douglass miserable because he was doing so well and she was afraid that he would one day leave her. This to a degree could be compared to the education system today by the way it conducts

Show More
Related

  • Bullshit In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    1190 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the prisoners had only shadows on the wall to look at since birth. Once a prisoner was released to the outside world, he soon found out that the shadows had only been a lie, that once the cave was lit up with light from the sun shining in, everything he once knew had changed and disappeared. This event leads the prisoner to face the question of whether should he go back to the cave to share what he knows about reality. I believe that he shouldn’t go back to the cave to share with the other prisoners what he knows because they haven’t learned the same way that he did, so they would believe the freed prisoner is bullshitting them. What is bullshit?

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Learning To Read And Write By Frederick Douglass

    743 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his article, Douglass first explains where he lived and gave acknowledgement to the women who helped him succeed in reading and writing. He says “I had no regular teacher. My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had in compliance with advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to instruct,

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Why I Learned To Read And Write Analysis

    582 Words  | 3 Pages

    Frederick Douglass in his narrative “Why I learned to Read and Write” demonstrates how he surpassed many obstacles along the way towards getting an education. These obstacles not only shaped Frederick’s outlook on life but also influenced him in his learning to read and write. Frederick’s main challenge was that of not being an owner of his person but rather a slave and a property to someone else. Frederick Douglass lived in the time when slavery was still taking place and slaveholders viewed slavery and education as incompatible. The slave system didn’t allow mental or physical freedom for slaves; slaveholders were to keep the apt appearance and slaves were to remain ignorant.

    Read More

  • Comparing Plato's Republic And Frederick Douglass

    936 Words  | 4 Pages

    Often times, it is assumed that learning does not have negative consequences and leads to one’s enlightenment What people don’t realize is that being thrown into the light can burn. Associating learning with pain is clearly illustrated in both Plato’s Republic and Frederick Douglass’ The Education of Frederick Douglass. Both works represent people who move past their ignorance through the acquisition of knowledge and step into the light, both literally and metaphorically; they become aware of their own situations and with that comes pain. Book seven of Plato’s Republic (trans. 1968) presents the allegory of the cave and the idea that learning isn’t always pleasant.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Importance Of Education

    836 Words  | 4 Pages

    (Douglass, 2014, p. 133) Education is equally yoked by the power to free an individual and to enslave an individual. Education frees an individual from the misleading bliss of ignorance, resulting in a new ability to think critically and to understand. However, ignorance does not require hard work as education does. Ignorance allows individuals to remain in their comfort zones.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Plato's 'The Allegory Of The Cave'

    773 Words  | 4 Pages

    Plato tells us that the prisoners are confused on their emergence from the cave and that the prisoners’ will be blinded once they had been freed from the cave. After a period of time they will adjust their eyesight and begin to understand the true reality that the world poses. The stubbornness to develop a different perspective is seen in much of today’s society. The allegory of the cave is an understanding of what the true world is and how many people never see it because of their views of the society they are raised in.

    Read More

  • Plato's Views On The Allegory Of The Cave

    1377 Words  | 6 Pages

    1) In the allegory of the cave, Plato’s main goal is to illustrate his view of knowledge. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave their whole lives and all they have ever been exposed to were shadows on the wall and voices of people walking by. The prisoners in the cave represent humans who only pay attention to the physical aspects of the world (sight and sound). Once one of them escapes and sees the blinding light, all he wants is to retreat back to the cave and return to his prior way of living. This shows that Plato believes enlightenment and education are painful, but the pain is necessary for enlightenment and it is worth it.

    Read More

  • Human Nature In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    1159 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Views On The Importance Of Education

    1727 Words  | 7 Pages

    With all the knowledge he was gaining, he began to comprehend everything around him. The things he was learning fascinated him, but the “more [he] read, the more [he] was led to abhor and detest [his] enslavers”(Douglass 35); however, that should not be viewed as a negative affect but a positive one. No one should want to be deceived for their entire life. This hatred that he built up motivated him to continue to further educate himself. As a result, he later motivated other slaves to earn an education by having “[availed] themselves to [an] opportunity to learn to read” (Douglass 69) by Douglass teaching them every Sunday.

    Read More

  • Objective Truth In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    817 Words  | 4 Pages

    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)”

    Read More

  • The Allegory Of The Cave In Plato's Republic

    451 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Ignorance Is Bliss In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    2035 Words  | 9 Pages

    Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is at its core a metaphor for what Plato believed to be wrong in Greek society at the time. The fact

    Read More

  • The Allegory Of The Cave In Plato's Republic Book VII

    595 Words  | 3 Pages

    Socrates’s allegory of the cave in Plato’s Republic Book VII is an accurate depiction of how people can be blinded by what they are only allowed to see. The allegory does have relevance to our modern world. In fact, all of us as a species are still in the “cave” no matter how intelligent or enlightened we think we have become. In Plato’s Republic Book VII, Socrates depicts the scenario in a cave where there are prisoners who are fixed only being able to look at the shadows on the wall which are projections of things passing between them and the light source.

    Read More

  • Searching For Truth In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    836 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Nature Of Reality In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    728 Words  | 3 Pages

    The state of most human beings is depicted in this myth of the cave and the tale of a thrilling exit from the cave is the source of true understanding. Plato has portrayed the concept of reality and illusion through the allegory of the cave. One of Socrates' and also of Plato's, chief ideas was that of forms, which explains that the world is made up of reflections of more perfect and ideal forms. In the Cave

    Read More

More about Ignorance In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Open Document