The ability to be able to distinguish between what is real and what is an abstraction is essential to the understanding of the world. Within in Plato’s The Republic, the allegory of the cave shows the process of learning what is real and its importance within a just society. Plato, within the allegory of the cave, utilizes the prison in opposition with the upper world to further expound upon the theory of forms and ultimately further justify the Philosopher as the ideal ruler.
Plato’s analogy of the cave operates on the binary of the cave and the upper world; these two binaries then correlate with what Plato calls the “perceived” and “Intelligible” realms, which serve as a basis in the theory of forms. The audience is first brought into the cave where puppets, lit by artificial light, are moved in order to create a shadow on a screen for trapped prisoners to witness. The shadows are merely an abstraction of the …show more content…
As a prisoner becomes free of his restraints he is dragged through the cave and up to the upper realm. Blinded, at first, by the overwhelming light, he is forced to merely look at shadows, then reflections, and finally he is able to look at the objects themselves. This “ascent into the upper world” is analogous to “the upward progress of the mind into the intelligible region” where the true forms are found (244). The objects the prisoner see’s after he has ventured out of the cave are real, not puppets or shadows of the real thing. This idea of “real” and “true” objects is essential to Plato’s theory of forms. What people see in the visual world, represented by the cave, are merely abstractions or analogies of an original, true form that only exist in the context of the human mind, which is represented by the upper realm. Not anyone can escape the cave however, only a select few posses the education needed to escape, and subsequently to be able to realize an object or idea’s true
Plato’s analogy of the cave operates on the binary of the cave and the upper world; these two binaries then correlate with what Plato calls the “perceived” and “Intelligible” realms, which serve as a basis in the theory of forms. The audience is first brought into the cave where puppets, lit by artificial light, are moved in order to create a shadow on a screen for trapped prisoners to witness. The shadows are merely an abstraction of the …show more content…
As a prisoner becomes free of his restraints he is dragged through the cave and up to the upper realm. Blinded, at first, by the overwhelming light, he is forced to merely look at shadows, then reflections, and finally he is able to look at the objects themselves. This “ascent into the upper world” is analogous to “the upward progress of the mind into the intelligible region” where the true forms are found (244). The objects the prisoner see’s after he has ventured out of the cave are real, not puppets or shadows of the real thing. This idea of “real” and “true” objects is essential to Plato’s theory of forms. What people see in the visual world, represented by the cave, are merely abstractions or analogies of an original, true form that only exist in the context of the human mind, which is represented by the upper realm. Not anyone can escape the cave however, only a select few posses the education needed to escape, and subsequently to be able to realize an object or idea’s true