Explain the analogy of the cave in Plato’s Republic (25 marks) In the Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato explains his analogy of the cave. He uses his analogy to explain to others that the physical world is nothing but an illusion and that true reality can be found by connected to the forms which is a world of eternal, immutable and infinite ideals of everything on earth. Plato’s analogy beings in a cave. The cave is used to help distinguish between the material world and the world of Forms. A number of prisoners are sitting in the cave, unable to move due to them being chained down and facing a blank wall.
In the analogy one of the prisoners is released, he turns around and discovers the fire, people and the rest of the things behind the prisoners. At first it was painful for the prisoner to look at the fire as his eyes were only accustomed to the shadows, gradually however he becomes used to the light and can see more clearly. Plato uses the cave to represent the World of Appearances or the Empirical World- the world in which we live. The shadows on the wall represent images, shadows and other illusions which we can see from the sun, here depicted as the fire. The prisoner is dragged by force out of the cave into the true sunlight.
Philosophy and Ethics AS level 1 (a) Explain the Analogy of the Cave in Plato's Republic [25] (b)'The Analogy of the Cave tells us nothing about reality.' Discuss. [10] (a) The allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic is one of three similes used by Plato to explain his theory of forms; however this is not its only use. It also gives us ideas about reality. the main features of this analogy are a group of prisoners who have been in the cave all their lives, they are shown shadows on a wall which is being cast by objects being placed in front of a fire and then one of the prisoners is set free and leaves discovering that his idea of reality has changed.
Plato’s text explains the progress of mankind becoming educated, from total darkness, and Malcolm X also explains how he himself was imprisoned; and used that time to become educated. I have read two very interesting texts about freedom, resistance, and oppression. “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X and “the Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, both have a person trying to learn what is outside their prison cell or cave. As explained in the passage “Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; 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.
These captives are forced to live in this dark reality believing that this all that there is. Once one of the prisoners is released from the cave and sees what the world actually is he realizes that what he thought was the truth was all an illusion. He sees the sun and knows that everything exists because of the sun, much like the shadows existed because of the fire. With his new found knowledge of reality, he is forced to return to the cave with his fellow prisoners. The others don’t believe him when he tries to explain the truth.
Plato's “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato's “Allegory of the Cave” is ostensibly a tale of prisoners locked in a cave with eyes bound to a wall. [1] These prisoners represent the unreflective in our society, and the story attempts to illustrate the ascent towards absolute knowledge. The story is a reflection of Plato's “Forms”, the idea that each object and abstraction in the world belongs to a perfect model only attainable through thought. [2] The cave represents an uncivilized society without philosophy. The shadows thrown on the wall symbolize the tangible objects in the universe and the fire represents our sun which illuminates them.
When the prisoners return to the cave and see the other prisoner that were not able to leave the cave they start feel like they are a leader or like they have to tell the truth of what is really going on. But then they feel like they don’t fit in there anymore because they know too much or like they are surrounded by ignorance because the rest of the prisoners have no clue to what the actual reality is. For example if a group of people was to leave in area with way out from civilization by themselves not knowing that anybody else in the world existed but
The prisoners entertain themselves by naming the shapes as they pass through their view in a form of a predictive game. The shadows cast on the back of the cave wall by the carriers of statues is the only reality the prisoners are aware of. Socrates suggests the images are the extent of the interaction and stimulation they receive during their entire life, with the exception of one
In his childhood, Elie Wiesel was a boy who expects more of God then human beings. He spends lots of time studying the Talmud and dreams one day he can study the Kabala. “By day I studied Talmud and by the night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (Night 3). At that time Elie believes God would protect his people from anything and God is everything and everywhere. However, because of all these terrible things happening in the concentration camp that filled Elie with disappointment and anger, Elie realizes his faith is not unadulterated any more in the article.
English 073 My View by reading Malcolm X Malcolm X changed his life by reading a lot of books. He was just a street man before. The good thing is for him to be consent that prison was the first thing that made his life to be changed. By reading every kind of books he learned a lot for people, places, and events for history. It was very hard for him to read in the prison because he couldn’t read late nights.