...Aylin Vargas English 1301-416 Allegory of the Cave Annotation The son of a wealthy and noble family, Plato (427-347 B.C.) was preparing for a career in politics when the trial and eventual execution of Socrates (399 B.C.) changed the course of his life. He abandoned his political career and turned to philosophy, opening a school on the outskirts of Athens dedicated to the Socratic search for wisdom. Plato's school, then known as the Academy, was the first university in western history and operated from 387 B.C. until A.D. 529, when it was closed by Justinian. Unlike his mentor Socrates, Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in...
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...Candelaria Philosophy Midterm Paper What does the allegory of the cave suggest about the nature of education? The allegory of the cave is supposed to be a metaphor for the world we are living in. That finding this truth or overall good is how people will be able to gain the most knowledge. Socrates is explaining to his student, Glaucon, how he believes it’s our own ignorance of goodness and truth that will prevent a man from gaining this nature of education. What Socrates fails to mention in my own opinion is how this allegory supports a role in the nature of education. In my essay I want to go over what my interpretations are of this allegory and how it’s structured to represent our learning throughout our life. This will lead to my argument explaining how irrelevant this metaphor is simply because it is an allegory. For my second argument I will mention how I disagree with Socrates views on the nature of our education. For the last part of my argument, I want to go over what I believe is also involved with the nature of our education, not being just the “Good”. I want to briefly go over what exactly this allegory represents to me. By establishing my understanding towards what the allegory means, I can hopefully strengthen my future points that I am making. It is obvious that Plato structured this allegory to represent the divided line that separates what we know from our senses and our mind. The allegory isn’t just four stages of the divided line but also four...
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...PLATO'S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE (FROM PLATO'S "REPUBLIC", BOOK VII, 514a-c to 521a-e) [ Note : interpolated comments in green ] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened : -- "Behold ! , human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den. Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets." "I see". "And do you see", I said, "men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall ? Some of them are talking, others silent." "You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners". "Like ourselves", I replied. "And they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave ?" "True", he said. "How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads ?" "And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows...
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...as the principal speaker. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers. The Allegory of the Cave can be found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic, a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice. Often regarded as a utopian blueprint, The Republic is dedicated toward a discussion of the education required of a Philosopher-King. The following selection is taken from the Benjamin Jowett translation (Vintage, 1991), pp. 253-261. As you read the Allegory, try to make a mental picture of the cave Plato describes. Better yet, why not draw a picture of it and refer to it as you read the selection. In many ways, understanding Plato's Allegory of the Cave will make your foray into the world...
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...The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He sees it as what happens when someone is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must "go back into the cave" or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power struggles. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or are slaves to their senses. The chains that bind the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the details of the cave into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the cave? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our soul's ascent to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellect's world of opinion. Both were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to "see" things that are not real, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher understanding the world "abstract Reality" or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand...
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...Plato - Allegory of the cave In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, prisoners have been chained up in a dark cave for most of their lives and can only look at a wall without any access to the outside world. Behind them is a roadway used by travelers and behind that is a fire that casts shadows on the wall the prisoners look at. They know nothing else in life except these shadows. In the allegory, one of the prisoners is released and he is blinded by the light outside the cave. As his vision slowly clears however, he explores the new world and he is able to see the truth, the very thing he knew wasn’t true. When the prisoner ran back to the cave to tell the other prisoners, they didn’t believe him. This allegory is a symbol for the contrasts between ideas and what we perceive as reality. For example, Plato would argue that ideas transcend the physical world. Think of a cup. That cup could fall on the ground, it could crack, break... eventually it won't exist anymore. However, the idea of the cup will go on forever. The idea, once thought of, cannot be undone. It cannot be broken or tainted. Plato also argues that we are the cave slaves. We live in a world of shadows, where we don't see the reality of ideas. We see the cup that can be broken, the shadows of ourselves. However, it is possible to climb out of the cave, to be released from our shackles, but the process is painful. When the cave slaves (ourselves) climb from the cave (perceive and understand ideas), we see the world...
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...The cave is very dark because there is little light inside it and hardly seen the objects. There are some chained people on their necks as well as feet, these chained people cannot move easily. Similarly, there is also another world out of the cave world, but between these two worlds, a wall is raised. On the wall, many other people move with different things on their hands and their shadows fall in the cave world. The people inside the cave cannot raise their head completely so that they can only see the shadows like illusion, which they believe, as real but it is just their illusion. - See more at: http://www.bachelorandmaster.com/creationofknowledge/allegory-of-the-cave.html#.Vm1VcUp961s Plato also talks about an ideal state, which is a utopian world. In an ideal state, there is equality among the people because no one is superior or inferior in this world. There is free flow of knowledge justice and truth, everywhere in the ideal state. Plato is also known as the first communist because of his concept of equality among the people. In the ideal state, rulers are also true philosopher whose wealth is not money or gold but spiritual knowledge. Those are the best rulers to rule the ideal state because they are reluctant to rule and active to serve the people as true servants. In other words, the rulers at the ideal state are never thirsty to exercise power, they do not want to impose cruelty over the people but instead they are worried of the condition of the people and the welfare...
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... Mr. Platt Revelation of the Soul We live in a society where we are told what to eat, drink, think, etc. Living in such a ritualized lifestyle can often leave us blind. However, we don't even realize it. The "Allegory of the Cave," by Plato, is more than just a story; it's a tool that can be applied to our life in almost any situation. For instance, looking into this story, I realize how much it is related and connected to religion. It is so easy to just do what everyone else is doing just to feel accepted. Which was me, a conformist, trying to fit in. Plato's story not only opened up my outlook on life, but was an interpretation of my allegory of the cave–being saved spiritually. I did everything and anything just to fit in with everybody else. When he or she is a child, they usually practice the same religion as their family, because it's the only way one knows. When I was younger, my parents enrolled me in a private school, Goshen Christian. I didn't know what the importance of religion was when I went there. I was just going because my parents told me to. Which relates to the cave in a way, for instance, Plato says, " human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light…; here they have been from their childhood, and their legs and necks chained so they can not move…" (Plato 449). This relates because even from my early childhood I felt as if I was...
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...In my own opinion, I believe that the short story “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato is basically a story that represents the way in which people perceive what they to be reality. The story’s location is in a cave, where there are people who are chained down and forced to look at a wall that is in front of them, for their entire lives. They cannot stand up or move their heads in any direction. The cave is completely pitch black with the exception of a fire lit behind them, casting shadows upon the wall that they are forced to stare at. There are people behind them using puppets, and different materials to cast different shadows on the wall. These shadows on the wall are what the people who are chained in the cave perceive as reality. One of the people who was chained down in the cave gets released out into the real world, thinking that the shadows he had been seeing was actual reality. The story describes how when he was released, what he saw was aching to the eye, and he was not yet even fully out of the cave. Plato says how since the sight of these new images would be so unnatural and uncomfortable for the man, he would feel a need to go back to the cave and stay where he feels comfortable, or safe. One he was fully surrounded by the outside world, full of sunlight, he was completely disturbed and blinded by the suns rays. Plato states how the man will at first see the shadows and the reflections of the people he is amongst, and then he will look up at the sky and to the sun, and...
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...Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see. where humans are depicted as being imprisoned by their bodies and what they perceive by sight...
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...The Allegory of the Cave and Disney Movies The Allegory of the Cave is one of many vivid and complex stories in Plato’s book entitled “The Republic”. The Allegory of the Cave is a story about the unseen truth of the outside world. The story takes place underground in a cave where prisoners are forced to watch a show that they believe is what life only consists of. There is a blazing fire set back behind them and a wall where puppets are displayed so that it casts images on the wall in front of the prisoners. Their heads are chained so that the only thing that they are able to see is what is being projected on the wall. For the prisoners, this is all that they know about life and all they have ever known. A prisoner later escapes and finds his way out of the cave and into a world that he did not believe existed. He was blinded not only by the light but blinded from what he missed out on for so long. He was so happy of what he has seen but discouraged at the same time of what the cave has made him believe for such a long period. He traveled back to the cave to tell the others of such a beautiful place above them, but to his dismay, the prisoner’s scolded him and didn’t believe a word he said. For the prisoners, the cave was all they knew and they were angry that someone would try and tell them otherwise. The prisoners didn’t want to believe they were being hidden from the truth. Plato used many metaphors in the story, For instance, I believe that the cave is used...
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...Allegory of the Cave Kimberly McClure PHI 103 Prof. Victor Reppert February 28, 2014 The stages of the prisoner in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave are as follows: There are three prisoners who are tied to some rocks in a cave. They have been imprisoned in the cave since birth and can see nothing in front of them but a stone wall. When people would walk on the walkway the fire would cast shadows of the objects they were carrying on their heads onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners thought these shadows were real objects. Then one of the prisoners manages to escape the cave. He was accustomed to the dim light of the cave so when he first surfaced out of the cave he was blinded by the light of the real world. After his eyes adjusted he was able to appreciate the variety of the real world. The escapee then returns to the cave and tries to tell the other prisoners that there is a better world out there. More real than the one they are in. they do not believe him and threaten to kill him if he tries to set them free. As a child I always believed what adults told me. I was very naïve and wanted to believe the best about people. I was limited in where I could go and what I could do because I was just a child. As I grew older and was able to find out things for myself I felt that I had more freedom. I began to think more for myself and was able to find out if things I had been told were true or not. I also went to a private school and after graduation I could...
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...The Allegory of the cave was created by Plato a Greek philosopher during 514a-520a. The Allegory of the cave symbolizes a thought and how we see reality. The Allegory of the cave basically came from a conversation Plato describes that went on between Socrates and his brother Glaucon. The conversation Socrates has with his brother elaborates on humanity and society. Everything in the cave has a different meaning when it comes down to describing the cave, the shadows, the escape, and the return. The cave is described as something that looks like a dungeon where there is little light but still very dark to the point where you can’t even see anything. There are people in the cave but the people cannot move because they are supposedly chained up...
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...The Allegory of the Cave In The Allegory of the Cave, Plato describes a dark underground cave where a group of people are sitting in one long row with their backs to the cave’s entrance. Bound to their chairs since childhood, all the humans can see is the distant cave wall in front of them with shadows being displayed. Their view of reality is solely based upon this limited view of moving shadows; this is what is real to them. Plato illustrates, in The Allegory of the Cave, that humanity believes aimlessly in their beliefs, prohibiting any comprehension of the truth of their existence. The "prisoners" do not realize that they are being held captive, since that existence is all they have ever known. “One might be released, and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round, and to walk and look towards the firelight; all this would hurt him, and he would be too dazzled to see distinctly those things whose shadows he had seen before” (15). What Plato is trying to tell the reader is that a man cannot leave the cave himself, he needs foreign help to achieve true reality. The only way to successfully leave is if you are “unplugged” from the game of life, almost as if “...someone would drag [a man] thence by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun....” (19). Upon his release into the free world, “he would have to get used to it...” (21), Plato says this to make the reader apparent of the fact that...
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...In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato presents his abstract view of human nature and truth, whereas Douglass presents his personal journal in “Learning to Read and Write.” Compare and contrast Plato and Douglass' essays and ideas. How might Douglass view Plato's allegory based on his experience? The most basic question that we can ask ourselves is: who and what am I? Moreover, the answer to this question about human nature (what a human being is) will greatly affect how we see ourselves. In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, he managed to let us visualize people living in a big cave, where these people were chained by the leg and by the neck and they couldn’t move. They can only see what is in front of them. He explains to us how the “The Allegory of the Cave” is the education of the soul toward enlightenment. According to Plato, the chains that bind the prisoners are the senses and the prisoners symbolize ignorant people, the raised wall symbolizes the limitation of our thinking. The idea of Plato’s essay describes how most people are trapped in their own world, unaware of what is happening around them. According to Plato the “The Allegory of the Cave” is the common man and it represents all people before they are fully educated. The common person sees nothing but the shadows on the wall of the cave. In Plato’s essay, the fire has a significant meaning to the common man; it is the source of light and the only reality he can see as it sheds light into the cave. Then comes...
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