Socrates 'Allegory Of The Cave'

Gabriella Savino

Western Civilizations I: Ancient

October 4, 2015

Professor Gradie

‘Allegory of the Cave’ At some point in everyone’s life, they have asked: why are we here? What is reality? PA famous Greek philosopher named Plato wrote the ‘Allegory of the Cave’. His intention was to try to answer these types’ questions for us.

‘Allegory of the Cave’ is an idea based on what we know and what we think we know. One of Socrates’ main ideas was that of forms. The world in which we see, smell, touch, and hear is known as the material world. The material world is filled with half-seen images of the truth of forms. What we perceive to be true is actually only a reflection of the forms the world represents and by trusting what we see and

The prisoners have been there since they were infants, living in an underground den. Their legs and necks are chained so they cannot move. Thus, they are only able to see what is right in front of their faces. At a distance behind the prisoners there is a burning fire. Between the prisoners and the fire is an elevated walkway on which people can walk. A wall is on this walkway and acts as a screen. Men pass along the wall holding figures in the shape of humans and animal as well as everyday things like jugs. They are all made of stone, wood, and many other materials. The fire throws the prisoners own shadows and the shadow of the objects which are being carried on the opposite wall of the cave. Being that the prisoners are immobile and can only see the shadows on the wall in front of them, they suppose the images are real. They do not think that they the shadows could be illusions of what is actually there. The images on the wall would be so realistic that the men would give respect to the one who could remember the most detail about the shapes and the order they appeared. However, since the images were not real, this was a hallow

As humans, we believe only what we see. Thus, coming up with conclusions based on that. However, a lot of the time what we see is not actually true. We see this in ‘Allegory of the Cave’ when the prisoners-only seeing shadows- thought the jugs, statues, and figures of animals were what was actually behind them. When in reality it was men carrying these objects. A lesson to learn from this is to look under the surface of things to see things to get the true meaning. Do not believe the obvious, always look harder and question