He makes it near impossible for those people to see the truth spoken by the Bible. All they know is what he wants them to know, which are the shadows the prisoners see cast on the wall. The “prisoners” do not even know that there is a better world outside for them. They either believe that their “cave” is the best place to live, or the only place to live. These prisoners can break free though, by seeing the light, or God.
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. The shadows represent the perceptions of non- philosophers in the world and the cave represent those who think that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world. The next part of the analogy is to ask what would happen if a prisoner was set free from their chains and would finally have the ability to turn their head around and see things as they really are. The prisoner would struggle greatly to take in this new environment and would undoubtedly be blinded by the light of the fire. The prisoner would then be dragged out of the cave against his will and have the sunlight forced upon him .He would find the sunlight painful and would not be able to take anything in until he adjusted to the light.
Groff 1 Kirstyn Groff Ms. Campbell Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” Response Questions 8/15 Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” Response Questions Q1: The cave in Plato’s allegory represents the reality we chain ourselves in. The chains being our inner selves fear of letting go of the reality we created. We allow the chains to hold us back because we don’t have the courage needed to free ourselves. We lock ourselves in the darkness of the cave that puts a blanket over our eyes to blind us from the light. The light at the end of the cave represents the good in life, the perfection in the world in front of us.
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
The philosopher then goes back into the cave to try and share his ideas with the other prisoners. The sun in the outside world illuminates the truth. When the philosopher first goes out into the light he is blinded by it. This could show that it’s painful to accept reality
The only thing the people can hear are the voices of the people carrying the things and the shadows of the objects. Plato said if one of the people was to escape and tries to explain what he has seen there would not believe him because they have been in the cave since birth and have not seen the outside world. He explains the theory of the cave by assuming that the prisoners are average humans and they don’t want to change from the way they think of the word. It could also mean that we the people of the world are arrogant and ignorant and we don’t want to change our views about the world. The chains which are bound to the prisoners represent the mind and how they hold humans captives to what we want to believe because we have been brought up in that way.
After reading The Lord of the Flies and watching Cast Away, I know that being trapped and isolated on an island will change you. In The Lord of the Flies, the boys were stuck on the island and they lost the morals and values they learned from back home. Being trapped on an island also makes you have to adapt to your new lifestyle. The boys changed the way they dresses, how they acted, what they ate, and what they needed to do to survive. Chuck from Cast Away also needed to learn to adapt to his new lifestyle living alone on the island.
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.
Sometimes life gets hard and bad things happen and no one knows why. What we need the most, are the people around us to stick together. The boys have one group who stuck together and had one leader who takes care of them all. They looked up too him and all that he did, and that was Ralph. One other group lead by Jack is what made this island a danger to everyone.
This philosophy contradicts with that of other philosophers, whose beliefs rest on the pursuit and building of knowledge. It can be concluded that other philosophers aspire to obtain as much knowledge as possible, while Socrates is in search of only the underlying truth. Knowledge is the common idea of The Apology and The Allegory of the Cave. The Allegory serves as a metaphor that illustrates the effects of knowledge on the human spirit. It begins with a group of people, trapped in a dark cave since birth.