Explain Plato's Analogy of the Cave Plato was a dualist, he believed there are two worlds, the world of the Forms and the world of Appearances. 'The Analogy of the Cave' portrays humans stuck in a 'world of appearances'. It depicts a cave in which there are prisoners who have been chained up since birth so they can only see in front of them. The prisoners have their back to a curtain, behind the curtain there is a road and further behind that and higher up in the cave is a fire. People walk alond the road carrying various objects such as models of animals on poles.
In Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave we are show a story in which a prisoner raised in a cave chained to view a wall, unable to move or turn its head. And in the back of the cave a fire, while others move objects and statues of people, animals, ECT…. the only truths these prisoners have come to learn of reality are the shadows and themselves. Then suddenly one of the prisoners is set free to leave the cave. When finally able to turn its head around, the prisoner first starts to acknowledge that what they have been seeing are only the shadows of the objects that pass by the fire.
Plato, through the spoken words of Socrates, attempts to illustrate the value of education in the form of an allegory to Glaucon. In book seven of Plato’s Republic, Socrates verbalizes a realization that the average person living within their society could both think and speak without any cognizance of the Forms. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave; with this he begins to lead Glaucon to understand the difference between genuine knowledge and opinion or belief. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain how the people of society can appear to function well without any knowledge of Forms. Socrates invites Glaucon to imagine prisoners who have been chained since childhood
`Plato’s teaching about reality in his analogy of the cave Plato was a philosopher who lived in Ancient Greece. Known by some as the Father of Philosophy, Plato put forward his analogy of the cave, in order to explain his views about the realm of the Forms. Also the analogy of the cave was made to tell and inform people about philosophy. The cave is about men who are prisoners in a cave and their hands and legs are in chains also their face is restricted which does not give them the chance to see. The only thing they can see is the wall in front of them.
“The Cathedral” and “The Allegory of the Cave” are two short stories that resemble each other in the need to break free from negative illusions. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes a man named Socrates who describes an illusion. This illusion included prisoners in a cave who have been chained by their arms and legs. These prisoners are bound to the floor and unable to turn their heads to see what goes on behind them. The prisoners are only able to see what the puppeteers are casting on the wall, which they perceive as reality.
The analogy starts by imagining a group of prisoners that are chained in such a way that they can only see the cave wall in front of them. They have been this way since birth so they would assume that the cave wall is the material world. Behind them is a walkway with a low wall in front of it in which travellers carrying artefacts or statues would travel across. Behind these people is a fire which casts shadows of the artefacts against the cave wall. Naturally, when the people walked across with their various artefacts the prisoners would only see their shadows and if a traveller was to talk, they would logically assume that the sound or voice had come from the shadow.
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the scenario begins by describing a cave inhabited by three prisoners who have been chained and held immobile since childhood; not only are their limbs held in place, but their heads are also fixed, which compels them to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire and between the fire and prisoners is a walkway, along which people walk carrying things on their heads including figurines of men and animals. The chained up prisoners interpret the shadows cast on the cave wall to be as real. Eventually a prisoner is released from the cave and permitted to be let out to see the outside world such as a river, the sun, the stars and begins to discover the ultimate truth. When the ‘enlightened’ prisoner returns to the cave and voices to the other prisoners how the shadows are not the reality they seem; he is brutally kicked to death by his fellow prisoners.
They have been in this state since they were born so they have grown into their ignorance. The cave also has an exit, a journey into the light, into knowledge the philosopher’s journey for knowledge. The cave represents a trapped existence from knowledge and by the prisoners seeing incomplete realities on the wall it also
Plato’s analogy begins in a cave which is meant to represent the material or physical world. A number of prisoners are bound by their necks and legs so that they cannot turn around. They have been this way since birth and know no other life than this. Behind the prisoners is a low wall, a walkway and a burning fire. From time to time individuals perform puppetry in front of the fire which projects shadows against the wall in ahead of them.
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.