The Allegory of the Cave focuses on how our ideas and perception differs from what is the actual reality of life. He proposed “The allegory of the cave” which can be found in his book “The Republic”. Amongst Plato’s, many contributions to Philosophy is also the allegory of the cave, during the year 375 B.C.E. Epistemology What is the Allegory of the cave?Īn allegory is one of the several literary devices that can take the form of a poem, or a story that may seem simple but has a subtle meaning to it.Since some questions require some sort of proof or evidence for them to be considered true but these pieces of evidence are not considered plausible hence there is much controversy in the topics discussed in Philosophy. It uses rationality to answer the most complex questions. With that the enlightened one left, knowing that his companions were lost in blissful ignorance, and he could do nothing to convince them for fear of death.Starbucks Rewards Hacks – Know More What is Philosophy? Seeing what happened to their former companion when he was taken into the light, they decided that they’d never ascend because if they ascended they’d lose their sight of ‘reality’. They knew he wasn’t as adept to their reality, which they perceived as being the right one.
#Allegory of the cave explained full
Once he’s back in the cave his eyes are full of darkness and he’s unable to see things as clearly as his companions, for he had grown accustomed to the reality of light, because of this his former companions made fun of him. With this thought in his head he heads back to the cave. Remembering his former companions he grows full of pity for them, knowing that they don’t share his knowledge of what is ‘real’ and what is a mere shade of reality. He continues learning about this new reality until he is fully convinced. He begins slowly only identifying shadows at first and slowly progresses until he’s able to identify the sun, and contemplate the sun as an idea and not just as an object. His enlightenment is continued as he’s forced up the stairs and forced into the sunlight to view the real world. He looks back to the shadows which he identifies as reality, and looks back and forth between the fire and the wall until he finally accepts that the fire may be more ‘real’. Order custom essay Allegory of the Cave Summary The prisoner, once he’s set free, is blinded by the fire the moment he turns his head to face the fire. They are all content with this knowledge and nothing changes until one of the prisoners is set free. It continues to tell us that they’ve been this way since birth, and that a massive fire behind them that allows them to see shadows broadcast onto the wall, periodically people go be the fire with statues of people and creatures which cast shadows onto the wall and this ‘shadow world’ is what the prisoners consider their reality.
When we are first brought into this cave at the beginning of the allegory, it contains prisoners bound by chains in such a way as to force their heads to stare at this wall. We’ve been raised in a society of ‘don’t question it’ which leaves the people vulnerable to the people carrying the statues across the fire, creating our sense of reality. It’s exactly as Aldous Huxley feared, we’ve become lost in a sea of information which debilitates us to gain conscious understanding of information. Surprisingly it applies in many ways to our society in modern times, nowadays no one questions what is true and what is false. Clever Plato took these ideas and weaved them into an intriguing story of prisoners trapped in an underground cave, and then what happens when one of them was enLIGHTened. In the allegory three main ideas are illustrated : that we have been conditioned to a definite reality since birth, we scorn being brought into the ‘light’ of knowledge, and that we (as a society) reject anything that contradicts the notions of our preconceived reality. Allegory of the Cave Summary Plato’s Allegory of the Cave presents an enthralling concept that holds strong to this day.
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