John Paras Grand Canyon University Com 126 April 30, 2010
Page 2 The Allegory of the Cave from the faculty of Washington College, is the article I found that gave me meaning as to what Plato was trying to say . It showed that the Prisoners saw only the shadows of what the puppet men were carrying and they only said what they thought the images were . In the example the prisoners thought he “ saw a book , but he was not seeing a book , he was seeing a shadow of a book . “ Plato’s point is that they were referring to shadows they saw on the wall and not the actual item that the puppet men were carrying in front of the fire that caused it to make a shadow on the wall.
The example given in The Allegory of the Cove shows us that the prisoners were no really seeing the object but the shadow of an object that was reflected on the wall , if they could have turned around , which they could not , because they were chained , they would have seen that the real item was being carried by the real item was being carried by the puppet men and they were only seeing a shadow of the item. I believe this application was valid because it shows an illusion . If the prisoners could have seen the real article that was being passed in front of the fire , all that they were seeing was the shadow of the item on the wall . The prisoners think they are seeing an item such as a book but they are just seeing the illusion of a book , a shadow on the wall . The key points that stood out to me are that people see what they want to see even though what they are seeing is an illusion . And the fact that Plato was trying to point out that in our language
“names of physical things are not objects we are seeing , but things that we grasp in our minds .” Plato tries to show that the prisoners were only taking the words of the items from their language but they were only seeing the shadow of the item they thought they were seeing . Plato is trying to show our situation of the world as we understand it . Even though we are limited we do our best to understand the world form the shadows of ojects . And it also shows the if what we see is really reality. In today’s world we call Plato’s problem an “inverse problem to solve” . An inverse problem is a Page 3 mathematical problem that has been in exsitance since the 19th century , the result of the problem is , you have the result , you must find the cause . We could use this Plato’s theory in today’s world because many things that we see today are just illusions , like to current mortgage , and banking problems . Are we seeing the real cause or just an illusion.
