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The Role Of Truth In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Two truths can be contradictory, but that does not make them any less true. The truth is just the way people perceive, or want to perceive truth. Plato, a Greek philosopher from the Classical Greek era, wrote Allegory of the Cave. Allegory of the Cave is a great depiction of perception of the truth, and how the truth can be different for different people. What some people might find to be true can be false to others; however, both truths are as true as people make them. The truth can be different for different people. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Plato paints a canvas with a cave and some prisoners. The prisoners are given a false perception of what the truth is, but to them, their perception of the truth is true. Eventually, one of the …show more content…

In Allegory of the Cave, the still captured prisoners hang on to their belief that they have always known, even though it may not be accurate. This is because all the prisoners have ever known is what they will always hold true until they are convinced otherwise. Two people can make different statements that are completely contradictory; however, that does not make them false in their own eyes. If one has only learned one truth that is false, then one will only find the real truth if one is taught otherwise. People generally turn their own thought or things that they have been taught into the truth, but this does not automatically make those thoughts true. Rather than that, it merely makes people seem oblivious to the actual truth due to lack of their education of their surroundings. This is much like the prisoner who was freed because at first, he had the exact same beliefs as his acquaintances, but later he learned the real truth about the world. After reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, one can be lead to believe that Plato was trying to teach that uneducated people are “imprisoned” by their own ignorance. This statement is supported when the prisoners in his allegory don’t believe the freed prisoner. However, if the prisoners had been educated like the freed prisoner, they would have known that there is much more truth to the world than just the shadows that Plato had

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