The Allegory Of The Cave

The goal of this paper is to examine the allegory of the cave, what it represents, and how it relates to today. The cave is introduced in book VII of the Republic, by Socrates when he is talking about how we should gain our knowledge. The allegory of the cave represents, and introduces Plato’s view on education, and how he perceives the world. In many ways, the cave still relates to the people of today in which we are always being imprisoned by our own parents, teachers, and social media. Socrates explains that there are three prisoners chained up in a cave facing a big wall. They have guards over their heads and are unable to turn their heads, they can only look forward. Behind the prisoners is a raised wall in which people stand on holding …show more content…
Plato is declaring that knowledge learned through the senses is merely just an opinion. He asserts that we must gain knowledge through philosophical reasoning. The prisoners belived that they would see a person or an animal walking back, however they were deceived by their senses many times. They judged everything primarily on what they could see or hear, and once they were told the Truth they refused to listen. The released prisoner is the many philosophers that overtime have discovered the Truth about living a good life but are always being opposed by everyone else. Philosophers release themselves from the cave by first coming into realization that they are inside the cave in the first place. They have challenged everything/everyone that is keeping them trapped inside; their parents, cultures, religion, physical body and emotions. They expound their curiosity in order to be released. That is why the only way one can get out of the cave is if the individual stops believing everything that is told to them, and uses their critical thinking and curiosity to reject all popular opinion. Then once they are out they are not to coward back inside once they realize the Truth, instead they are to learn to the whole Truth. After they are to go back into the cave and teach the prisoners of what they have learned. Their role is to teach the prisoners to challenge everything that is keeping them …show more content…
In many ways, we are like the prisoners, because we are always blinded by not just social media, but by the environment around us as well. In a society, full of technology many people are known to ‘leave their life’ and enter a new by logging into their social media accounts. The shadows and sounds sensed by the prisoners are now represented by the pixels on a TV, computer, or phone screen. We are only fed the opinions and believes of other people. Many news channels today report more scandalous stories, like which Kardashian has gotten the latest plastic surgery, rather than talk about real logical Truth. Our society craves big juicy scandalous stories, therefore, that is all the ‘The Man’ broadcasts for us. We are also blinded by the people in our every day lives. Our parents can at times keep us trapped inside the cave as well. We are raised with their beliefs. If our parents are a certain religion, then we are forced to into that religion as well. We are told to always listen and do as our parents say, and many times it passes many beliefs over generations. This is a very big cause towards racism and prejudice. Often times if a child’s parent dislikes a certain race or custom, then that child will grow disliking that race or custom as well. Declaring that that is just how they were raised. They get so deeply rooted into that certain belief that they pass it on to their children, and their