He leads them from the cave and shows them reality, challenging all they have ever known. Returning to the cave the prisoners reject what he has shown them, although the saviour realises he cannot go back to his former vision. He becomes an outcast with knowledge without friends. The difference between the fire and the sun is key to understanding the analogy. The light of the fire gave the prisoners their limited vision, showing only shadows, whereas the brightness of the sun allowed and expansive view of reality.
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 Republic book VII Plato explains his analogy of the cave. Plato uses the analogy to help explain his ideological role in the two worlds which are the World of Forms and the Physical world. Plato states that the analogy would inform others how the World of Sense participate nothing but an illusion, therefore the true realism would be found in the everlasting World of Forms. Plato’s illation begins in a cave. The cave symbolises the World of Sense, a figure of captives are tired by their ankles and necks so that they are unable to change direction.
The prisoner reached the real world outside of the cave and, blinded by the sun, saw the real world in its glory and realised the illusion of the shadows. The prisoner returned to the cave with his enlightenment and tried to explain to the others of the reality. The other prisoners did not believe him, he was over-excited, blinded, confused and clumsy. The prisoners became frustrated with the man and wanted rid of the man disturbing their reality. In some versions of the story the released prisoner is even killed by the others.
The prisoners see the shadows and think that what they see is reality, like we think about our world now. The sounds made by the people walking past are thought to be from the shadows, what is seen and herd here is thought to be real. The shadows represent the images of the forms which are all that is seen in the physical world. The prisoners in this case represent the ignorant individuals who need to discover the philosophical truth; they believe that the shadows they see are the real objects because they know of nothing else. Plato relates this to the 5 senses, touch, taste, smell, sound and sight, it is easy for people to believe what is seen, touched, tasted because it is what we believe to be true.
Explain Plato’s analogy of the cave. (25 marks) In Republic Book VII, Plato explains his understanding of human existence and its context in an analogy; a device using the description of a familiar object or circumstance to describe something less familiar. Plato uses an allegory: the deliberate employment of symbols to represent specific aspects of the analogy. In essence, Plato uses the analogy to help describe his philosophical position on the main difference between the World of Particulars (the impermanent world in which humans exist) and the World of Forms (a place of supreme reality where everything is fixed and perfect). Plato also believed in dualism: the idea that human beings compromise an incorruptible, spiritual and immortal, rational soul that is housed within a mortal, sensual, corruptible, physical body.
The eternal world possesses the object of knowledge and is more real than the material world that holds the object of opinion. Plato is also putting forward his own view of a sequence of events that were to remain important during his life when he was only a student of Socrates through the analogy of the cave. To Plato there was a big difference between the natural world, the sensory experiences that informs people of their existence on Earth, and the world of the forms. The prisoners represent society who is all content with this incomplete world, even when one escapes they are fearful of straying from which he has known all of their life. In Plato’s analogy of
Furthermore, until they got to see what life was really like and not the artificial reality they have been experiencing. To reinforce this Plato used this quote to back up his theory of reality. '(Imagine) men passing along the wall (outside the cave) carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals'. Plato continued to explain that 'the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images'. Everything we know and believe is what our senses tell us.
They see different surroundings and actual objects, not just shadows and of course they are stunned. All that they believed to be real and true was a lie and they have now seen reality. The prisoner then returns to the cave to tell the others of his findings but upon returning he is put down by the others and they dislike what he is telling him. Plato then says that upon his return the prisoner could supposedly be killed. The prisoners represent the citizens of the world within the analogy of the cave and the people who carry the objects are the politicians of the world.
“The prisoners” in Plato's cave prefer to remain as prisoners even after they are released from their bonds because they are deceived by their own desires. The prisoners were leading a happy life because the shadows that they saw on the wall was the most real things for them. In “The Allegory of the Cave” one prisoner sets himself free and learns to habituate in the outside world by himself facing the reality. The prisoner who escaped learns that the sun is the main source of light that produced the shadow. He made his mind realize that whatever he saw in the cave were all illusions because they were just an image of an image.