Symbolism In The Allegory Of The Cave

Plato, a classical Greece philosopher, is a pivotal figure in the field of philosophy and political thought. What does remain of his work today continues to be influential and relevant. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundation for Western Philosophy as we know it. “The Allegory of the Cave”, from The Republic, is a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon. The allegory serves as a prime example of an enduring thought experiment demonstrating a facet of human nature relevant to a number of fields in humanities today.
Through the usage of various symbolisms, The “The Allegory of the Cave” explains the underlying basis of the echo chamber effect and portrays the importance of creating a point of view with knowledge acquired through research rather than from empirical evidence. First, the essay will illustrate the analogy in three parts: imprisonment, …show more content…
This is a fundamental facet of human nature, attempting to explain and construct a framework of understanding of the reality around us based on whatever knowledge our sense can provide. Where notion becomes relevant to political discourse is the idea that humans will always bulk at the notion that their existing interpretation of reality could be incorrect, that what they perceived to be true could be wrong. This can be seen in a number of cases, broadly speaking when new scientific discoveries challenge pre-existing cosmology, or in more specific cases in any given arguments where participants both believe their point of view to be true regardless of the facts. This difference in point of view can be seen in daily interactions between people and create tension in many cases and in a bigger scale can be tied to foreign affairs and even