The various meanings in the allegory can be seen in the beginning with the prisoners whom are confined within the darkness of the cave. They are tied down and unable to turn their heads to see what's behind them. Behind the prisoners, the puppeteers whom are casting the shadows on the wall create the prisoners' are reality. The allegory is told as a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon (Plato's brother). The allegory itself isn't the story, but it's the conversations between Glaucon and Socrates.
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
The initial problem the prisoners experience is their belief in the actuality of these shadows as objects in and of themselves. They believe the things they see on the wall are real, as they are, leading one to reference the prisoners games. The identification and games of prediction are rooted in a misguided foundation. The prisoners, think they are naming objects and predicting the order in which they appear, but Socrates points out the fact that their reality is limited to the shadows, they know nothing of the real cause of the
We know what beauty and justice is without having experienced it in perfect Form so to Plato knowledge was a recollection of what our souls already knew while in the perfect external realm In the allegory of the cave is this. In the cave there a humans who have been chained at the head and the legs so as to only see the wall in which they are placed. The fire behind these figures creates shadows or illusions which the prisoners see as their reality. The objects cast on the wall are projected by people walking past with certain objects such as puppets. They have been in this state since they were born so they have grown into their ignorance.
Automatically the prisoners start to see little images and start to give it names, but there is a smart prisoners among them and he is the taken out of the cave; he then realizes that everything he thought was real was now nothing. He goes back to the other prisoners to show them what the truth really is and what a tree really looks like but they do not understand because they have not seen. Plato used Socrates to describe one of his main points in philosophy, senses can not be trusted and everything is related to logic and reasoning. A brief example being people see and experience and automatically think that what they have experienced was indeed the truth, such as the universe, because we can not see what is above and beyond we set our minds in our world much like the cave. Plato believes that sometimes things can not be understood by observation but by logic and meaning having a clearer picture on things.
“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.
Religion versus the Truth In Plato’s book The Republic, he explains an allegory. He names it the “Allegory of the cave”. Inside of this cave he talks about, are prisoners. The prisoners represent people who have never stepped out of their comfort zone and gained knowledge of new things. For all of the prisoner’s lives they have known of a wall and a small fire.
In The Apology, Socrates begins by separating himself from his fellow philosophers and those who came before him. His main argument rests on the assumption that his wisdom is justified by his understanding that he does not possess all knowledge, nor does Socrates attempt to persuade others into thinking he does. Given this, Socrates attests that he has made it his life’s duty to question those who claim to be experts. Socrates upholds that philosophy is a way of life; the unifying theme of his life is to question knowledge, therefore, the questioning of knowledge must be Socrates’ philosophy. This philosophy contradicts with that of other philosophers, whose beliefs rest on the pursuit and building of knowledge.
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.