Plato's Analogy of the Cave

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Plato used the analogy of the cave to illustrate the nature of reality and importance of the philosopher by creating this analogy that people will be able to understand if they are accepting of having to think about things which could make them question a lot of other things. He also believed that many people who didn’t understand or want to hear of his analogy were themselves under an illusion which the analogy itself explains. In the cave, there are three prisoners who are facing a wall of the cave while, tied to chairs and unable to move their heads to see what is behind them. Plato refers to these prisoners as the majority of humans who can think, speak, and touch etc. without any awareness of their own realm of Forms. Behind them, what they cannot see, burns a fire which Plato refers to as the shadow of the sun which can also be illustrated as an illusion of good which really comes from the sun and the puppeteers have created it in the cave to represent good which is really the main source of the illusion. The sun is what Plato conveys as the one true symbol of good, this is also why he’s included the fire inside of the cave which is only good for the puppeteers to be able to keep up their illusion and is really bad for the prisoners as it’s the main thing keeping them from thinking. The other key feature inside the cave is the puppeteers who are holding up the puppets to create the shadows. Plato can referred to these people as the government who are ruling and backing up the world illusion that is within the cave. The cave itself can be referred to as a body which has the prisoners as its soul. The cave is fixed to the ground and is conveyed as the world of illusion which represents the body being fixed in a certain state of mind, where it’s unable to move around or see the real world due to it being trapped there while it’s soul is imprisoned and under an
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