(p.4 par. 8) depicting his own lack of understanding. As Socrates describes the cave and its prisoners, he states that the prisoners would inherently be ignorant as to what is truely reality. As the readers, we all are aware that the people behind the prisoners are creating the shadows to represent reality
The two main charges against Socrates are corrupting the young and also not having the proper religious beliefs. Socrates is being charged by a man name Meletus, who is one of three accusers. Socrates had been accused of making the weaker argument stronger and also about things in the sky and under the earth. While being examined by the poets, craftsmen, and orators, Socrates claims that they really do not know what they think they know and is trying to prove that it’s all false. After analyzing many different texts, it seems as if Socrates could be innocent and guilty at the same time.
Thinking that they were facing the possibility of a dream and not reality, they believed that they were unconsciously living manipulated by deception. Socrates, in the “Allegory of the Cave”, is not any different from Descartes and Neo who felt attached to a mastermind that computed or manipulated what it wanted them to do and see. Socrates describes these beings attached to the walls of a cave having their legs and necks fettered from childhood unable to move their heads, but only seeing what they were set or allowed to see, shadows cast on the wall from the figures passing in front of the light behind and above them (Socrates, The
In the allegory the humans are restraint simply by chains and it leads to the overall ignorance and falsified satisfaction. Huxley created a more complex idea of the population being chattels of the government with soma and hypnopaedia which restricted basic fundamental human rights. John the Savage was the only character in Brave New World to actually escape the metaphorical cave that is present in Brave New World. The only character to experience both world present, The world of savages who represent reality and enlightenment and also the “brave new world” which is the cave where people in the new world are trapped in. Similar to how the government in the “Brave New World” controlled society be feeding propaganda and hypnopaedic proverbs, puppet show men in Plato's “Allegory of the Cave” are the only sources of information to the individuals in the cave,
The shadows represent our experiences/perceptions. The journey out of the cave shows us reaching for the reality of the outside world by escaping from our chains of flawed senses and using our minds. The escaped prisoner represents the philosopher, like Plato himself. Being a rationalist, Plato uses reasoning and his innate knowledge to understand the concept of the Forms. The philosopher then goes back into the cave to try and share his ideas with the other prisoners.
Franz Kafka once wrote that “All language is but a poor translation.” He meant that true meaning, true communication, cannot be conveyed through simple words alone. The idea of the inadequacy of plain text is most evident in Kafka’s short stories “The Judgment” and “In the Penal Colony”. Within those works, Kafka asserts that language is but a tool; in the hands of a simpleton, it will accomplish nothing. An expert however, can use language to share his thoughts in a manner as close to perfection as is possible with such a cumbersome instrument. The torture machine of the story “In the Penal Colony” is a symbol of the authority language has.
“So long as we keep to the body and our soul is contaminated with this imperfection, there is no chance of our ever attaining satisfactorily to our object, which we assert to be Truth.” (Phaedo 66b) The human is so completely enslaved by their bodily needs that their sense of goodness and justice is off. Another significant argument that was thought was the belief that there is a dreadful disease of Misology. This is the hatred of reasoning and contaminates the mind and the man and causes one to stop questioning the world around him and to stagnate within the world of purpose. “…When one believes that an argument is true
This also ties into Socrates’ “Allegory of the Cave”. In it, Socrates explains that if we are showed the same non-existent thing, we start to believe it. The people in the “Allegory of the Cave” are chained in a cave, facing a rock wall. The images presented on the wall are what they presume to be real. Without the proper teaching, they obviously believe what they see.
For Oedipus, ignorance would have been bliss. In the case of Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’, once the prisoner is released he is forced to look upon the fire and objects that were his reality. He realizes these new images in front of him are now the accepted forms of reality. Plato describes the vision of the real truth in one way to the prisoners. Thus, they do not realize that they are looking at shadows on a wall and that there is an entire world outside the cave for them to experience.
The prisoners in this case represent the ignorant unenlightened individuals yet to discover philosophical truth. They are tricked into believing that the shadows they see are the real objects in themselves or that the sounds the people make are being projected by the shadows. Plato argues that the shadows and games played are equivalent to the five senses deceiving the individual. He believes that the objects we see in the physical world are pale