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Knowledge In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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In“Allegory of the Cave,” Plato starts by describing a cave whereby men are been locked up since childhood. He says “picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width.” Then he says the are some men are being chained up unable to look around just to face in front of them the walkway whereby shadows are being casts by the fire light behind them.All the knew and saw are the shadows of objects that are portray on the wall and were naming them according to the what they see.Suddenly one of the prisoners got release. While outside it was hard for him to adapt to the reality such as the sunlight which got to his eyes and blinded him because he has been used to darkness and also everything …show more content…
This is to say that in life we should not live and believe in our illusions or what we are told but we should embark in knowing the truth about why things are the way they are, being ignorant about the reality of life can be dangerous. Plato is claiming that knowledge which we have through our senses is just opinion and in order to have real knowledge we must have through philosophical thinking.Again, Plato is differentiating people who believe is what they see and hear as knowledge and people who really sees and know the truth.
The cave: In Plato’s article, the cave symbolises people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world which is empirical evidence that is senses or knowledge received from observation and experimentation.Therefore the cave portrays that people who believe in empirical evidence are locked up in a “cave” of misunderstanding.
The prisoners:They represents people that are ignorant of the truth.Who are locked up in their world of ignorance and believe just exactly what they see and hear, and everything around them are illusions of the real …show more content…
The escape: the escaped prisoner represent someone who goes out of the cave to seek for knowledge and outside of the senses.
The sun represents the real world, the truth as compare to the cave.Also the prisoner going temporarily blind after seeing the outside world represent the experience we receive after seeing or knowing what the reality is we become confused and unbelieving after trying to figure out that our illusions are not real but fake.
The return: the return of the escapee to release his other prisoners shows that some people actually really want to help others after know the truth and also that on getting back to the world of shadows you are confused and can’t believe in what you use to believe.Also the reaction of the other prisoners toward the escapee show that people are scared of knowing the truth and prefers to live in their ignorance which they call it as their comfort

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