There has never been peace in the rocky land of America. Since the years of Slavery to time of the Civil Rights Movement, people have been fighting for immigrant rights and equality. In reality, the system was created to prey on what society created as the most vulnerable. A majority of the world has been forced to conform into societal norms and regularities.…
However, just like the prisoners, I too was trapped in a “cave” of misunderstanding, my focus was only towards what was in front of me and nothing else. I personally believed that the way I defined my shadows were the right way, but Plato opened my eyes and made me realize that everything is not what it seems. It made me want to change my perspective, as well as, keeping an open mind on what I do not quite…
Is it better to live life as a happy fool, or as to have great wisdom at the expense of happiness? Do we think greatly of the knowledge we possess, or are we aware that despite the great sum of the knowledge we have, there is far more about which we are ignorant. These are among the questions we are forced to examine in reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and the later Apology, and Voltaire’s Story of a Good Brahmin. In the allegory of the Cave, Plato poses a question which contrasts our perception of reality versus reality itself.…
Introduction: In this paper, I will argue that are like the prisoners in Plato's Allegory of The Cave. To make this argument, I will first out the Allegory of The Cave. Second, I will argue that we are like the prisoners about the fact that what we see is selected for us, much like the people in Plato's trench picking which figurines they will hold up.…
Change is an adjustment and if you do not change you will be left behind. In the story, it gives the setting, then we get to read how the prisoners view the world and then how one of the prisoners was set free and this shows how he will begin learning new things from what he originally knew before. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” it shows that people should accept change because they never know what can happen once they know the whole truth and through the use of point of view, imagery, and symbolism. To begin with, we can see the point of view changes and transitions throughout the story.…
As a student attending Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City’s most prestigious and gifted school, I am constantly pressured by my parents to achieve the highest education as a student in order to excel in the future, whether it be recieving a scholarship, becoming famous, or getting a high salary job. Plato’s excerpt, “The Allegory of the Cave”, reminds me of my perpetual worries and doubts that I have of living up to my parent’s expectations. In “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato depicts a group of prisoners who can only see mere shadows as the closest thing to reality. This false perception of reality is the main takeaway of the allegory. Plato’s excerpt embodies the fact that as humans, we start off with optimistic thoughts and eventually…
We are all prisoners trapped within our minds and strained by the way we think. This objective point of view of the nature and value of truth is directly represented in Plato’s Allegory of the cave. The Allegory, the ‘platonic picture’, demonstrates the actuality in the journey of widening one’s perspective of the world rather than being held captive to false reality. In contrast, the “Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit” by F. Nietzsche ultimately challenges the platonic picture by primarily being a unique and emotionally based perspective that portrays a gain of achievement through each spiritual transformation while essentially lacking a crucial characteristic to advance. With both perspectives of truth in mind, does a better model of the…
Allegory of the Cave” is a philosophical parable or analogy from Plato’s The Republic, written around 380 BC. Exploring themes of knowledge, perception, and the importance of education, it takes the form of a discussion between Plato’s brother, Glaucon, and his teacher and mentor, Socrates. Although this dialogue was almost certainly scripted by Plato, it is not clear whether the idea itself is Plato’s own or his record of Socrates’s thoughts. The allegory begins with Plato’s Socrates describing a group of humans held in a deep, dark cave. They have been imprisoned there since childhood, their necks and legs bound so they cannot turn to see themselves, each other, or the rest of the cave.…
In Plato’s Allegory of the cave, the main philosophy is centred on the idea of illusion overlapping the reality that exists outside a person’s psychic. This type of notion set forth by Plato during the Renaissance is also modishly mimicked in The Truman show. Plato’s Allegory of the cave describes the nature of human understanding and what humans perceive to be truth in accordance to their knowing can be just illusory. Humans perceive illusions as reality because of the limitations that are posed by human senses, which define, narrow and confine the self-intellect. The Truman show, and Plato’s Allegory of the cave, present three elemental qualities, symbolism, the theme, and the setting that define the philosophical concepts which culminate…
I think that the main points illustrated by Plato's Allegory of the Cave are that people only know what they experience and only choose to accept what they have experienced, people who have knowledge have a responsibility to share it and that ignorance is bliss. The men trapped in the cave demonstrate how people will only believe what they have experienced by shunning the man who tries to tell them of the outside world. They aren't willing to accept that there is more to life than the wall and shadows in front of them. Plato believes that even the world we live in may just be another wall that is blocking us from seeing the truth.…
“To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 200). In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave there are prisoners who have only been able to observe shadows on a cave wall for their whole lives. Their whole perception of reality is based on shadows on a wall, that is their world. They are content with their lives and see the shadows on the cave as the truth. This allegory was written over 1500 years ago yet it’s philosophy still impacts our world today.…
Plato's Allegory of the Cave. What I intend to talk about is Allegory of the cave, and what is the meaning around the theory. Human perception, to get real or true knowledge, we must achieve this through philosophical reasoning. Because knowledge gained by your senses is not real knowledge.…
In “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, he uses allegorical writing and is able to create two levels of meaning by using literary and allegorical. A literacy meaning is the matter of a subject. While allegorical meaning is a suggestion of something that is symbolic and/or metaphoric. Plato’s main point of his story is to show his readers that learning is painful and requires suffering by telling just how distraught the prisoner became when his illusion was shattered and his understanding was altered. It also offers a scenario in which we are all deceived about the true nature of reality.…
In his famous “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes the journey to knowledge and truth, explaining how we come to know reality and why it is that some people are unable to attain true knowledge. In this essay I will be unfolding Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and explaining the prisoner’s journey from darkness (ignorance) to enlightenment (truth), explaining the philosophical view on reality versus belief and the process someone undergoes to achieve enlightenment. The reader is brought into a philosophical conversation between Socrates and Glaucon where it is told that inside a dark cave there are prisoners, “…human beings living in a underground den…here they have been from their childhood…theirs legs and necks chained so they cannot move…
Often times in society, people place more importance on aspects of lesser value. Instead of focusing on the impactful matters, certain people allow the mere opinions and objects of physical worth to dictate their lives and actions. This idea can be visualized in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where those dominated by public opinion are only capable of viewing a far removed, inaccurate version of reality. While this allegorical image acts as a critical reflection of civilization and various socio-political themes, it also displays other features discussed throughout Plato’s Republic, such as philosophical education, one’s movement towards enlightenment, and the “Divided Line”. With the use of numerous key symbols and metaphors, Plato further…