Comparing Plato's Republic And Hayy Ibn Yaq

Within Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and Descartes Meditation I, there are multiple similarities and differences in them. Reality is questionable within both of these stories. There is skepticism in them on whether they are truly living, and if it is real, or if it is controlled by something else entirely. In both stories, they also wanted to leave what they understood to be reality, to find what they thought and sensed to be the true reality.

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. Once he finally gets past the pain and is able to view the truth of the world, he feels pity for the

Society is often content with adhering to orders and often don't question the true essence of what they’re being told. Plato ventured towards this issue within his famous “The Allegory of the Cave” by using rhetorical devices such as metaphors to illustrate his message. Plato explores the philosophy of society in a particular structure that forces the reader to ponder on the mindset of a blind individual who finally sees the light.

Book seven of Plato’s Republic (trans. 1968) presents the allegory of the cave and the idea that learning isn’t always pleasant. The story begin with men bound in a cave, facing the wall. Between the men and

“The Allegory of the Cave” exemplifies a path of intellectual transformation that has important parallels to the journey of a hero. Socrates’ description of the Allegory of the Cave represents education and the role of education on the soul. This analogy consists of several stages that highlight the philosopher’s heroic journey. The first stage is an image of cave prisoners who spend their entire lives looking at shadows. The prisoners are “chained not just by their legs but by their necks, so that they can’t move and can only looks ahead of them” (Plato 239). Due to this, as they are unable to change or skew their vision, the prisoners’ only reality lies within their lines of sight. Behind the prisoners lies a wall, which puppeteers use to cast shadows of their puppets. These shadows are fabrications of the truth, while the puppets themselves are replicas of reality. However, since these cave prisoners are limited to one point of view, they “think of as the truth would be nothing but the shadows of the manufactured objects behind them” (Plato 240). This illustration represents the monotonous world of the prisoner before he crosses the threshold. Therefore, the prisoner begins his journey trapped in a realm of appearances and is completely unaware of the reality outside of the

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)” As Adler previously stated objective truth exists whether or not the human being has experienced it, in this instance the forms that cast shadows while passing by the cave. It can be inferred that both Adler and Morris agree that the negative response of the remaining prisoners in the cave towards stepping out and experiencing reality is a subjective truth and depends on the opinion of each prisoner, thereby belonging to the sphere of taste. Plato is able to present a situation in which both objective and subjective truth can cause a rift in the relationships that human beings can

In life, the world one lives in is always assumed to be the reality, without anyone questioning its credibility. As Iris Murdoch once said, “[People] live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.”(Iris Murdoch Quotes). In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, prisoners are trapped in a cave and chained so that they are to face a wall and only see the shadows of objects that pass behind them. However, one prisoner is released and forced out into the reality, allowing the reader to understand that the world one sees and experiences is not the reality, but rather an illusion. Similarly, in The Truman Show by Andrew Niccol, Truman Bank has been growing up in Seahaven Island, a place created just for him to live in for a television show that is all about him. Throughout the film, Truman realizes that Seahaven is not the real world, and viewers see his journey to get out of this illusion, and into reality outside the false world. Both The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show prove that the physical world is an illusion that prevents one from discovering reality. The concept of illusion versus reality is evident in both works through similarities in plot, similarities in symbolism, and differences in character.

The journey out of the cave represents a prisoners’ unwilllingness to change and a resistance to accept new truths. The prisoners have to force themselves out of the cave into this reality. 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.

Plato’s Allegory of the cave represents life/death/rebirth. Life/death/rebirth is a popular archetype that most authors use in fictional books. Plato’s Allegory of the cave begins with people that are locked in chains inside of a cave. The people inside the cave see shadows on the wall of animals and creatures that they think represents their life. This cave is an illusion of life that the people are experiencing. The people who are chained up get set free by the keeper, who is a symbol of the sun, or the “Rooster” who wakes people up from their illusions. The people are blinded by the sun and they want to go back to their illusion of life. This is when the people are in the Belly of the Whale or when they are symbolically dead. Once the people realize there is no way of going back to the way it was, they are “reborn” from their illusions and live their lives to the fullest and not take for granted what they have. Plato’s Allegory of the cave is

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the prisoners are described as being “chained so they cannot move, and can only see before them” (Plato 1). These chains are notable not only because they are the restriction that keeps the people

In the “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato breaks the story into four main scenes to demonstrate the path to enlightenment for the unenlightened reader. He uses a story of a man trapped in a cave,

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

An acceptable listener is a person who is able to put aside their thoughts and opinions in order to digest someone else’s views that are possibly different. However, the person can retain their own opinions even after listening, but for that moment they had an open mind during the discussion. In “On Communication”, Bohm is trying to manifest the readers why listening is critical. Bohm states that “communication can lead to the creation of something new only if people are able to freely listen to each other, without prejudice and without trying to influence each other.” In that statement, it is clear that Bohm is telling the importance of listening to one another. However, people must listen to each other, no matter anyone’s opinion, since that’s how new ideas are created, how people come together, and how people become educated.

Even though there are people willing to risk it all to go back to the life they had, there are some that become submissive and stop fighting. In Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Stanford phycology department. They recruited college students to run a mock prison so they could study the effect of becoming a prisoner and a prison guard. In this experiment that was supposed to run for two weeks ended up being stopped by the researchers on the six day because it was getting out of control. This is stated by the heads of the experiment Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, W. Curtis Banks, and David Jaffe in their report of the experiment. In the six days that the experiment ran they saw the personalities that the prisoner and prison guards took.

In Plato’s dialogue, the cave allegory, I am given a story about a prisoner and allowed to depict an image of what the cave looks like. Inside the cave are prisoners, a fire, a rocky path, and people who carried various artifacts that project shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners. The fire represents the sun, the rocky path symbolizes the journey of the soul, the prisoners represent us, the shadows were what they believed to be the truth, the people carrying the artifacts symbolize influences in life for example parents or teachers. The cave as a whole represents the visible realm. In the dialogue, the prisoners are chained so that they can only see what is in front of them and being depicted on the wall. “They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them,” (514b). A prisoner is freed and dragged outside the cave,