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Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, written around 380 BCE, is one of the most important and influential passages of The Republic, and is considered a staple of Western literature.
The Allegory in Time
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” appears in Book 7 of his masterwork, “The Republic.” Plato wrote “The Republic,” a sustained disquisition on a utopian society, sometime between 380 and 360 B.C., during a period of Greek history known as the Classical Age.
The main theme of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in the Republic is that human perception cannot derive true knowledge, and instead, real knowledge can only come via philosophical reasoning.
The allegory of the cave was presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic, originally to compare “the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature”. Oddly enough, the state-of-the-art field of machine learning, as it turns out, still fits more or less into this mold of more than 2000 years old.
In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato through Socrates tells a story about a group of people that was imprisoned in a cave with their hands and legs chained and their neck fixed towards the cave’s wall; they have been in the cave since they were in their childhood.
The intended audience for Allegory of The Cave is students, educators, and parents. This allegory is meant to be passed down generations to inform people of children’s capacity to learn. Plato believes that every child is born with the ability to learn and grow as long as their surroundings and mind wills them to.
In Book VII, Socrates presents the most beautiful and famous metaphor in Western philosophy: the allegory of the cave. This metaphor is meant to illustrate the effects of education on the human soul. … Socrates describes a dark scene. A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing the light of day.
The fire within the “Allegory of the Cave” represents the prisoners limitation to knowledge as they see it. The fire blinds them from the truth that lies beyond what they know, which gives them a false reality about the world.
So, the teacher in the allegory of the cave guided the prisoner from the darkness and into the light (light represents truth); education involves seeing the truth. Plato believed that you have to desire to learn new things; if people do not desire to learn what is true, then you cannot force them to learn.
“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”
The allegory of the cave is a metaphor designed to illustrate human perception, ideologies, illusions, opinions, ignorance and sensory appearances. The cave is a prison for individuals who base their knowledge based on ideologies.
The philosopher-king is the ruler of the kallipolis. Also called guardians, philosopher-kings are the only people who can grasp the Forms, and thus the only people who can claim actual knowledge. Since the philosopher-king yearns after truth above all else, he is also the most just man.
Plato (424/3–347) Philosophers have usually privileged the account of Socrates given by their fellow philosopher, Plato. Plato was about twenty-five when Socrates was tried and executed, and had probably known the old man most of his life.
From a wealthy and powerful family, his actual name was Aristocles — Plato was a nickname, referring to his broad physique. When he was about twenty, he came under Socrates’ spell and decided to devote himself to philosophy.
The Apology was written by Plato, and relates Socrates’ defense at his trial on charges of corrupting the youth and impiety. Socrates argues that he is innocent of both charges. … Socrates concludes the Apology by arguing that a just man should have no fear of death.
The death of Socrates in 399 BCE, as reported by Plato in the Phaedo, is usually attributed to poisoning with common hemlock. His progressive centripetal paralysis is characteristic of that poison.
In the “Apology” Socrates is on trial for crimes he has not committed. Socrates ultimately does not fear death because of his innocence, he believes that death is not feared because it may be one of the greatest blessings of the soul.
Plato introduces an internal conflict in readers as they finish his allegory. He causes us to question whether it is truly better to stay in the dark, satisfied with the knowledge we have, or escape the cave and see the light. Is it better to have knowledge or be naive? He puts this conflict at the end of his allegory.
Plato ‘s Allegory, And Glaucon, The Second Speaker | Bartleby.
Answer: 1. Plato reveals that humans are easily fooled into believing what they see and told is the absolute truth. In Plato’s story the people think that their entire reality is the shadows they see on the walls of the cave.
Twenty four hundred years ago, Plato, one of history’s most famous thinkers, said life is like being chained up in a cave forced to watch shadows flitting across a stone wall. Beyond sounding quite morbid, what exactly did he mean? Alex Gendler unravels Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, found in Book VII of The Republic.
What do these prisoners trapped in the cave believe is real? they believe their shadows are real.
The allegory contains many forms of symbolism used to instruct the reader in the nature of perception. The freed prisoner represents those who understand that the physical world is only a shadow of the truth, and the sun that is glaring the eyes of the prisoners represents the higher truth of ideas.
The puppeteer represents the members of a society who knowingly manipulate the beliefs of others. Just like the prisoners in the cave, many people may never get to see the ‘puppeteers’ whose works make them to unknowingly live with limited knowledge of the truth.
Terms in this set (21) The sun symbolizes near complete understanding of a certain or particular truth. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the prisoners were exposed to direct sunlight upon leaving the cave, resulting in temporary blindness.