The light at the end of the cave represents the good in life, the perfection in the world in front of us. The shadows that are able to be seen in the cave are the illusions that we allow ourselves to believe is real, what we created, or what we wanted to see instead of what is truth. Q2: When Plato compares silver and good to virtue and wisdom he is trying to relay the foolishness of men when the put more value in material things rather than things, such as virtue and wisdom, which are eternal and matter the most in life. Those who live in their own realities work to gain material things rather than gaining knowledge. “Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all—they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good;…” ("Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"" 50 Essays A PORTABLE ANTHOLOGY.
The shadows represent our experiences/perceptions. The journey out of the cave shows us reaching for the reality of the outside world by escaping from our chains of flawed senses and using our minds. The escaped prisoner represents the philosopher, like Plato himself. Being a rationalist, Plato uses reasoning and his innate knowledge to understand the concept of the Forms. The philosopher then goes back into the cave to try and share his ideas with the other prisoners.
The Stranger Essay Albert Camus novels The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus are based to define the meaning of existentialism. In The Stranger the main character Meursault is portrayed to show no emotions and judgments towards others. While The Myth of Sisyphus shows who lives his life in a stubbornly and arrogant behavior as if he’s out to get someone in life. In both stories the readers that they have taken life and for granted and come to sort of realize their wrongs at the end of the story. Neither understands having though, passion, feeling, or emotion in life.
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 allegory teaches us about enlightenment, and how if we can be philosophers we can be free. The Allegory of the Cave also represents an extended metaphor for the state of human existence, and for the transformation that occurs during philosophical enlightenment. When the light of the sun shines on the freed man, this is allegory for enlightenment and perception of the truth. The minor concerns of the world as he has viewed it previously are now seen as falsely held perception and he is eager to share enlightenment with others. Some believe that the Allegory of the Cave teaches us much about education.
The prisoners are only able to see what the puppeteers are casting on the wall, which they perceive as reality. However, one of the prisoners escaped the cave of darkness into the light of the new world and realized that the truth is beyond the chains. The Cathedra compares to this illusion by the sick marriage between a husband and a wife. The husband’s anger and resentment are his chains when compared to the “Allegory of the Cave.” This marriage struggled until the presence of a blind man, Robert, visited their home. Robert helped the husband see a different perspective of life and what reality really is.
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.
<BR>In the short story The Electric Ant, Philip. K. Dick is expressing his sarcastical opinion of man in society and man's inability to distinguish between the truth and fantasy. Using his main character's life, Garson Poole, the author illustrates teh delusion of mankind's freedom. This delusion is demonstrated by three components of Garson's life: his automated reality chip, and his emotional and physical makeup as an oranic robot. <br> <br>Garson Poole who, prior to his detection of the reality chip was under the impression that he was exempted from all the world's restraints, finds himself in a bliss of confusion when he realizes that his life is being dictated by an automated reality tape.
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
AP Literature and Composition 15 June 2012 “The allegory of the cave” Few people are able to realize the truth before them or the lie that makes them who they are. In the passage “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato starts off telling a story to Glaucon through Socrates, in this passage it contains pure metaphorical meaning about what people know about the truth. Socrates speaks about a cave, this cave contains prisoners these prisoners have benn held captive since childhood and there limbs have been set in place to look at a wall, behind them fire. This fire is used so other men can cast shadows of the walls. 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.