Research Paper On Allegory Of The Cave

Allegory of the Cave Project You have never really thought about life in general until something comes along and makes you question your very existence. When we first went over the Allegory of the Cave, I did not know what to think. It is a very different way to look at life. I probably never would have even thought about if I had not taken this Intro to Philosophy class. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato tells us about his version of the forms we see everyday (Solomon, 67). Interpreting what Plato is talking about in this is very difficult sometimes, Philosophy in general is difficult to interpret. After we talked about it in class, I have a good understanding about what Plato is trying to have us see what the forms really are in life. Imagine a cave, and the top of it is a tunnel that leads out into a whole different realm full of beings and forms of things. Before you are born, you live up here and see all the forms of everything in life. Then when you are born you are forced down into the cave. The cave is symbolizing our world of being that we live in today (Solomon, 69). When you are born and put in the cave, they have you forced to sit an look …show more content…
These items are not forms but a resemblance of the forms participating in a “puppet play”. Right behind this walkway full of people is a giant light that casts over a partial wall placed directly in front of these people walking around. The light shoots at the wall that you have been forced to look at since birth. Since the people are holding all different types of things over their heads, it causes the front of this light to have a shadow of the objects they are holding casted onto the wall that we are looking at. These are called the particulars according to Plato. However, since this is all we can see, and do not know about the forms that we are participating in, we believe these are the actual forms (Solomon,