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Plato's Republic: The Allegory Of The Cave

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The allegory of the cave first published in Platos Republic was retold in Cottingham text and discussed in Class. An allegory is a story used to reveal a hidden meaning. Plato’s hidden meaning revolves around reality, the perception of reality the perception of truth.
Plato paints a picture of humans being captive in a cave, bound in a manner where that cannot move and can only see what is before them and what is before them is the cave wall. In this cave behind the prisoners is a great source of light which illuminates the wall before them before this wall is a trench or a low wall where if something is raised above the low wall a shadow is cast on the wall in front of the prisoners. These captives have never known any other existence but …show more content…

As explained by Socrates “dear Glaucon…the prison-house is the world of sight” (pg 75) the human realm. This is the journey toward the ultimate light, the sun is “ journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world” (pg75).
This story contains many parts. For efficiencies sake, the parts of the allegory are as follows, the escaping prisoner or Bill as described in the classroom is Socrates. The additional prisoners heard in the cave are the rest of humanity. The cave is the human realm. The fire inside of the cave is a reflection of the good, a lesser form of truth, subjective truth. The shadows projected from the fire are the things as they appear. The guards are the rest of humanity and other philosophers keeping others from finding the good. The escape is the journey from darkness, the human realm to the intellectual realm of the good, the realm of the forms. The reflections off the pond are reflections of a greater good or an objective good, based on the scale provided on Cottingham Pg 72, the reflection would represent mathematical objects. Outside of the cave is the realm of the forms with the sun being the ultimate form of the good and the tree and the things outside of the cave are forms, actual things as they are that exist in the realm of the

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