In his description of the parable of the cave, he describes prisoners in a cave ‘with a long entrance open to daylight as wide as the cave,’ the prisoners legs and heads are restricted of movement so they can only look straight ahead of them. ‘Behind them and higher up’, is a fire and between the prisoners and the fire is a road with a curtain ‘like the screen at puppet shows between the operators and the audience, above which they show their puppets’ (Simile of the cave). Men go past this screen, carrying tools and gear behind the curtain and the prisoners believe that the shadows they saw are real and that they were able to speak. The prisoners believe they are real because it is all they have been seeing since they were children. They never question the source of the shadows, they simply accept that they are there.
Plato describes the cave as having prisoners chained up facing the cave wall. These prisoners are in an illusory world (our world- the world of appearance). These prisoners are chained to the floor, these chains could symbolize our senses, saying our senses (the chains) cause us to accept everything that we see and hear around us. There is a fire burning behind them, of which they can see the shadows of on the wall in front of them, they believe the shadow is real and is the reality of the fire. As well as the shadow of the fire, the prisoners can also see shadows of people crossing the footbridge behind them, carrying stone animal statues; again they believe these shadows to be real.
Explain Plato’s Parable of the Cave Plato’s parable of the cave is an analogy of what Plato thought reality was. It tells us a story of a group of prisoners found deep within a cave. The prisoners were chained together and forced to watch a large wall in front of them. This was their life since childhood, watching this wall. Behind the prisoners was a large fire and between the fire and prisoners was a walkway.
A) Explain the analogy of the cave Plato’s analogy of the cave is taken from the republic and is used to illustrate his theory of the forms. The analogy uses elements of the story to symbolise the situation in which people find themselves in reality. The analogy can be broken into three different sections: the description of the cave, a prisoner breaking free and the prisoner returning. Within the cave there is a section facing a wall with prisoners chained in such a way that they cannot turn their heads or move from their spot. Behind them, out of their view is a walkway on which people walk across holding objects above them.
Only true reality can be found in the world of forms, in which everything is unchanging. Plato’s analogy is set in a cave, the cave is meant to represent the physical world, from which people only see what Plato describes to be an illusion. The prisoners within the cave know of nothing but what they have seen for all their lives. Behind the prisoners are a low wall and a walkway, in the walkway a fire burns, every now and then people walk past the fire carrying objects that reflect into the cave as shadows. The prisoners see the shadows and think that what they see is reality, like we think about our world now.
Plato’s Cave Plato’s cave includes prisoners locked up in a cave by hand and feet with their heads in a fixed position so that the only thing they can visibly see is the wall in front of them. Shadows appear on the walls seen in front of the prisoners allowing them to think the shadows are the reality of what is outside of the cave. Little do the cave prisoner’s know, the shadows are produced by a fire burning at the cave’s entrance and allows the objects being carried by the fire to produce shadows that reflect off the wall. The prisoner’s that are kept in the cave are to believe the cave is reality. If you then took one of the cave dwellers into the real life, they would feel threatened by the bright sunlight shining directly into their eyes.
Explain Plato’s analogy of the cave [25] Plato’s analogy of the cave describes some people who are prisoners and they are only able to see one wall of the cave. Behind them was a lit fire which gave light to be able to cast shadows onto the wall that the prisoners were facing. These shadows were cast by puppeteers who were behind a wall and held things up to tell stories to the prisoners via the wall. One prisoner is forced out of the cave, where he has been his whole life, to see the ‘real’ world. He finds out, after adjusting to the new sunlight, that the shadows were just representations of real objects and that the shadows he had believed to be real objects were in fact not.
Plato cave analogy is that anyone who was not or is not a philosopher, are like prisoners in a cave 'Behold! Human beings are living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light'. As prisoners they were forced to watch the shadows on the walls. These shadows were created by a fire, which were being manipulated by puppeteers. Furthermore, until they got to see what life was really like and not the artificial reality they have been experiencing.
Allegory of the Cave-Plato “Allegory of the Cave” presents a vision of a group of prisoners chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of artificial objects carried by persons walking in the trek behind them and what would happen if a prisoner is set free. Through a serious of metaphors, Plato argues that a hero is man of wisdom, prowess, and endurance. First of all, the cave, chains and shadows show a full-scale condition of US citizens-they are confined by the ideal democratic and peaceful images pictured by the government such as those promising speeches given by candidates for presidency. The prisoners--Citizens in the US are only exposed to those appealing words of the government—“Mission accomplished:)”-- that they are unable to make a positive change because they cannot see the relatively cruel reality until someone is set free to “walk with eyes lifted to the light” and come back down there to inform them. As this free man sees the light, an “eye ache” is inevitable because he’s been in the dark for too long.
In this scenario Socrates asks Glaucon to imagine a cave that is occupied by prisoners who have been in the cave since childhood with their legs and necks shackled by chains where there movement is restricted and their visibility is limited to one side of the cave. Behind the prisoners is a gigantic fire and between the fire and the prisoners is a walkway which is used by people who often pass through carrying an array of objects. Unable to turn their heads and only knowing the shadows the prisoners begin to see this as their own reality. Socrates begins to explain to Glaucon, what if one of those chained is released from their cave and walks into the real world where they are mesmerized by the light. Gradually the prisoner begins to feel fortunate and begins to become accustomed to his new world and.