We see that ideas are eternal and perfect, even though the physical world crumbles. The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. The thesis behind his allegory is the basic tenets that all we perceive are imperfect "reflections" of the ultimate Forms, which subsequently represent truth and reality. In his story, Plato establishes a cave in which prisoners are chained down and forced to look upon the front wall of the cave. When summarizing the "Allegory of the Cave" it's important to remember the two elements to the story; the fictional metaphor of the prisoners, and the philosophical tenets in which said story is supposed to represent, thus presenting us with the allegory itself.
Topic: In Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from his Republic, the vivid imagery of escaping the slavery of our shackled understanding of the world is quite pronounced. Do you agree that escaping the cave is to be desired? What can or should you do to pull yourself or those around you from the cave? The Cave in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” represents the world that we live in as we See it and believe it to be in our own reality. Plato uses the description of “Darkness” to possibly imply there are false realities that we each have and uses “sunlight” to stand for being enlightened by the “new world”, which is what the released prisoner was to experience.
Explain Platos allegory of the cave (25) The Greek philosopher Plato established his allegory of the cave from his writings in 'The Republic' and has multiple morals that are displayed through Socrates and Glaucon. Here his hypothetical argument questions the relationship between the world of appearances and reality, illustrating people worthy of ruling (philosophers) cannot trusting their empirical knowledge though the senses, but only through understanding the world of the forms through intellectual knowledge can we experience a dim recollection of reality. The allegory begins with a description of prisoners in a cave, who are only able to look strait ahead because they are chained. Plato's use of a cave is argued to have built upon the earlier philosopher Empedocles who said 'we have come under this cavern’s rood, conveying the sense of being trapped in a different world away from light and reality. This is similar to Plato's idea the material (body) trapping the immaterial (soul).
Behind the prisoners is a low wall, a walkway and a large fire that lights up the cave. Every once in a while, people walk across the walkway carrying objects and because the walkway is in front of the fire, it causes shadows to be cast against the wall in front of the prisoners – just like shadow puppets. They associate the sounds made by the people casting the shadows against the wall of the cave with the shadow itself because they know nothing better. This is the only reality they have ever known. The prisoners represent ignorant, less educated people who have not yet opened their minds to the philosophical truth – the intelligible realm.
This proves that the prisoners do not know what real is so every one of them has his own definition of what real is; therefore they name what they see according to their opinion. In another experts Plato illustrates how the prisoners would assume mistakenly that what they hear is the sound of what they are viewing. “And suppose further from that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passersby spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadows”(Plato 20). What Plato means is that the prisoners would assume that the voice they hear is coming from the shadows that they are seeing. The prisoners cannot see further than their noise because their thoughts and opinions are controlled; therefore they are lead to make the wrong
Plato’s allegory is identified as a great philosophical writing that is so symbolic. The allegory explains that we may not be able to know the truth about existence if we rely majorly on our own perceptions. Human senses and perceptions are unreliable and imperfect because they make individuals look at things in their own view and not as they truly are. (“Cohen” 2006) According to the Plato’s allegory, humans think and speak without acknowledging and being aware of the realities but their perception and opinion. Plato refers to untutored humans as the chained prisoners who can’t be able to turn their heads in the cave.
The prisoner returns to the cave to share with the other prisoners what he has learned. Plato calls this journey “the turning around of the soul”. The journey that the prisoner took was one of education because the prisoner learned that there was more than just what he could see in the cave. In the movie Dear Frankie, Frankie is the prisoner in the cave and his mother is the one who is showing him the images, although she is only doing so to protect Frankie from the truth that is father abused him. I think that Frankie’s mother should have told him the truth about his father or protected him a different way, instead of lying that his father was writing him.
More commonly, deception stands being viewed as hand and hand with “evil”, this includes, not only viewed by people, but also portrayed in movies and novels from all eras of time. Frequently feelings dealing with deceit, like jealousy, create anger in an individual leading into irrationality. Although honesty is important, of course, deception can actually make it easier for people to get along. Most lies are harmless social untruths in which people pretend to like someone or something more than they actually do. Deception is sometimes justified.
Society has labelled these mechanisms as schizophrenic behaviours. Yalom Yalom relates to the psychodynamic readings of existential philosophy, and he agrees with the theory that human resistances are buried deep within ones unconscious. He respects a client’s resistances understanding that a client uses them to feel safe. Sigmund Freud believed that a person’s unconscious, sexual and aggressive drives causes anxiety and humans manage the anxiety by using defence mechanisms such as introjections and refusing to accept the anxious feeling. Yalom agreed with the psychodynamic theory that, “energy is dissipated in an attempt to ward off anxiety” (Yalom, 1980), although he thinks most of the process goes on outside of the conscious.
To break this out the cave is the stereotypes of the world. The shadows are those that see things at face value. They are individuals that are not thinkers. The escape of the prisoner is a representation of an individual seeking knowledge. Being out in the open shows the truth and knowledge.