Book VII of the Republic, begins with a description of a group of people who have lived chained and motionless to a wall for their entire lives. The individuals stare at a blank wall as shadows are projected from objects passing in front of a fire that lies behind them. Over time they begin to give names to the shadows that they see and believe these sounds they hear echoing from the walls come from the shadows. These sites and sounds are the only reality that the prisoners know and believe that they see are real. Socrates then poses that one of the prisoners becomes free from his chains and turns to see the fire. The light pains his eyes and only naturally he would desire to return to what he knows. However, Plato takes it one step further and poses that the prisoner is dragged out of the cave. Slowly, the prisoner’s eyes would begin to adjust to the sunlight and begin to see the objects upon which the shadows are based. After seeing the truth and realizing that his life in the cave was a lie, he would naturally feel compelled to free the other prisoners and bring them into the truth and knowledge. Socrates uses the sun to describe how the light from the sun illuminates the prisoner’s ability to see the real object rather than the illusion of the shadow. Socrates uses the sun as an example to depict how the light from the sun illuminates the truth. …show more content…
Just as the prisoner feels compelled to bring his fellow cave dwellers out of the darkness into light, that is what the purpose of education is. Even the ship simile helps to further illustrate this point. The ship is owned by a man hard of hearing, lacking sea-faring skills and who has poor vision. The sailors constantly argue over who should be captain, even though they themselves have no knowledge of navigation. The sailors use force and clever tricks to persuade the ship owner who to choose to captain the ship. None of the sailors even realize there is a craft of navigating a ship. This scenario helps to illustrate that just like in the cave, no one is completely aware of all the real knowledge that lies beyond what they can immediately see.
The allegory of the cave given in an argument alone is not a compelling explanation for discovery of true knowledge or understanding. I believe that given all the examples, the cave, simile of the ship, as well as the sun and line analogies the argument is much more clear and concise. Socrates wants the reader to realize that what we can see or hear with our senses is not necessarily what is true or gives us the greatest
After Socrates experienced a new reality and nature, he planned on going back to the cave to persuade the prisoners to join him. He asks Glaucon if his eyes will have to readjust to the darkness of the cave after being in the sunlight. Because the prisoners were used to seeing the illusions of shadows inside of the cave, they did not want to change their perception of the world and leave their home. Socrates asks, “And if they can get hold of this person who takes it in hand to free them from their chains to lead them up, and if they could kill them, will they not actually kill him?”(Plato). Socrates is planning on freeing the prisoners from their chains and taking them out of the cave, but he questions Glaucon if the prisoners would kill him if they got the chance.
In the dialogue, Socrates claims that after a prisoner leaves the cave and sees the sun (which symbolizes truth and knowledge), he will not participate in the cave dwellers’ ignorance. Similarly, individuals who chose to become enlightened to the true nature of reality do not partake in the ignorance of humanity; instead they encourage individuals to believe in philosophical knowledge. The cave dwellers believe that the shadows on the walls are real, just like individuals accept the reality of the world with which they are presented; however, they are both illusions, which are perceived. This is because over centuries human perception is merely a shadow of reality and individuals are like the cave dwellers who believe the perceptions created by society (Cleveland). Therefore, humans need to raise past the perceptions governed and taught by society in order to break through ignorance and travel on a path of
Throughout the last five weeks, I have read three of Plato’s dialogues: the cave allegory, Euthyphro, and the Apology. While reading them, I was able to see Plato’s view of a philosophical life. To live philosophically is to question appearances and look at an issue/object from a new perspective. In this essay, I will explain Plato’s cave allegory, Socrates’ discussion with Euthyphro, and the oracle story in the Apology.
Socrates continues: "suppose...that someone should drag him...by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun." [2] The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him.[2] The sunlight is representative of the new reality and knowledge that the freed prisoner is experiencing. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun.
Between the fire and the prisoners there was a wall where people walked with many objects such as wood animals and materials of all kinds. The slaves could only see the shadows of everything that passed through this wall, since the strings did not allowed them to move their heads. Socrates was creating a bigger image, but at the same time he asked Glaucon questions in order to help
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.
The emergence from the cave is an enlightenment of intellectualism, when all the difficulties and confusion of life is gone and only reality exists. Plato uses the shadow of fire as a metaphor for intelligence. The people who emerged out of the brightness represent truth; the freed prisoner. The chained prisoner would “look towards the firelight; all this would hurt him, and he would be too much dazzled to see distinctly those things whose shadows he had seen before”(Plato
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)”
The phrase “ignorance is bliss” has many different ways of being interpreted. The idea that what we do not know cannot hurt us, and that it is better to be in a situation whereby we are ignorant to the truth, rather than a situation where we know a hurtful truth, is one that can be debated at length. One of the best examples of the idea of “ignorance is bliss”, and the impact that the truth can have on people, is the Allegory of the Cave, a concept created by the Greek philosopher Plato in the fourth century BCE. The allegory shows how our perspective can change radically when given new information, and how that new information, when shared with others who are not aware of it, can give them a radically incorrect idea of the truth, when not taken in the proper context. Here, we will first explain the concept of this Allegory of the Cave, before interpreting its meaning and how it related to the greater ideals, values, and convictions that Plato and his philosophical works stood for during and after his lifetime.
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.
These people as well as items would cast a shadow on wall for the prisoners to see. Socrates suggest that the prisoner would start identifying different items and classifying them, “Now if they were able to say something about what they saw and to talk it over, do you not think that they would regard that which they saw on the wall as beings” (Plato 1). The theory
Plato’s theory, ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, aims to explain the nature of reality and human perception. With this theory of his, he aims to answer questions like ‘why are we here and what is reality?’ He explains this theory as a conversation between his mentor, Socrates and one of his students, Glaucon. Plato claimed that the knowledge gained through our senses is not real knowledge. In fact, real knowledge is the knowledge that is gained through deep philosophical reasoning.
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.
Because of this they cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these real people that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes of the people whom they do not
To the prisoners, what they see is(emphasis) reality, it is their reality. Socrates goes on to describe what would likely happen if one of the prisoners were to be freed from the depths of the cave. "... he will suffer sharp pains: the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the