Essay on Plato's Analogy of the Cave
Plato's Republic was written as a biting political critique, a revolutionary piece about the state of society and how it must be improved. However, Plato also delves into philosophy in the Republic and while the Analogy of the Cave is an extremely politically charged statement, it reveals much about Plato's ideas about epistemology and philosophy.
Plato starts in his usual dialogue style of writing, by imploring Glaucon (Plato's brother) to imagine men in a cave, chained in such a way that they can't move and their heads are locked looking at the back of the cave. Behind them is a fire, which casts shadows on the back of the cave when people and other things pass through the cave on a road in between …show more content…
For Plato, our reality is to us as the shadows are to the prisoners, a reflection of something much more real. Plato believed it was possible for humans to experience this higher form of reality, the Realm of the Forms, through philosophy. The escape of one of the prisoners from his fetters and progression through the cave and to reality is Plato's way of describing philosophical enlightenment: the original disbelief, due to how much more "real" our perception of the world is, represented by the freed prisoner's first astonishment and disbelief, preferring to regard the shadows as reality. Eventually, however, he adjusts to the light and accepts the world outside to be truly real, just as the philosopher will come to understand the Realm of the Forms.
Every part of the Allegory of the Cave represents an aspect of Plato's philosophy: so far, the prisoners represent humanity (or the non-philosophers therein), who remain ignorant of the real world beyond the cave, accepting what they see to be real, while the chains signify the bonds that our perception cause, not unbreakable, but assumed to be by most people, who we will see come to prefer being chained to being
Plato's Republic was written as a biting political critique, a revolutionary piece about the state of society and how it must be improved. However, Plato also delves into philosophy in the Republic and while the Analogy of the Cave is an extremely politically charged statement, it reveals much about Plato's ideas about epistemology and philosophy.
Plato starts in his usual dialogue style of writing, by imploring Glaucon (Plato's brother) to imagine men in a cave, chained in such a way that they can't move and their heads are locked looking at the back of the cave. Behind them is a fire, which casts shadows on the back of the cave when people and other things pass through the cave on a road in between …show more content…
For Plato, our reality is to us as the shadows are to the prisoners, a reflection of something much more real. Plato believed it was possible for humans to experience this higher form of reality, the Realm of the Forms, through philosophy. The escape of one of the prisoners from his fetters and progression through the cave and to reality is Plato's way of describing philosophical enlightenment: the original disbelief, due to how much more "real" our perception of the world is, represented by the freed prisoner's first astonishment and disbelief, preferring to regard the shadows as reality. Eventually, however, he adjusts to the light and accepts the world outside to be truly real, just as the philosopher will come to understand the Realm of the Forms.
Every part of the Allegory of the Cave represents an aspect of Plato's philosophy: so far, the prisoners represent humanity (or the non-philosophers therein), who remain ignorant of the real world beyond the cave, accepting what they see to be real, while the chains signify the bonds that our perception cause, not unbreakable, but assumed to be by most people, who we will see come to prefer being chained to being