Similarities between Allegory by The Cave and The Six mediations on the First Philosophy. Plato and Descartes are by far the two most renowned philosophers amongst others of their age and era. These two individuals, despite being born in two different time scales, had the same perception of reality as it is. Plato was born earlier, compared to Descartes, in the third century BC; while Descartes was born much later in the late sixteenth century.
However, the two share one thing, that isthey both were philosophers who sought to find out the ideal being within them. Plato was an old philosopher and is credited for publishing books and other philosophical articles. Allegory by the Cave is one of the widely read and used books of Plato. On the other hand, Descartes had much to do with his surroundings and thus mediated on philosophies that had been stated by earlier philosophers, such as Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. By so doing, he came up with the popular book Meditations on the First Philosophy. Despite the difference in time, reading through the two sets of writing shows that there are similarities in them.
To begin with, the two principles believe in a benevolent God. Descartes view of religion acknowledges that there is a supernatural being present when one is born. As the child grows, those in their surroundings pass the information and religious beliefs down to them. This process recurred from one generation to the next. As a result, the matured child is in a position to believe in the same notion as the elder generation believed. A similar view is also seen in Platos perception of religion. Plato carries on the knowledge that he attained from his teachers, such as Socrates, to his students.
Descartes and Plato also share a view on the idea of a Utopian society. Descartes view is that the best means of acquiring knowledge is by perceiving clarity. He also goes further and describes his idea of a Utopian society as that which allows imaginations, senses, and thinking to improve despite the physical state of the mind. He also states that there should be consistent encouragement of mental faculties to improve ones thinking, imagination, and senses.
Platos view on a Utopian society is slightly different in the sense that it is aligned more towards religion compared to Descartes view, which is a rationalized sort of thinking. Plato states that in an ideal society, there are laws but no lawyers for offenders. This may seem to be practically impossible in real life. To bring his point to conformity with real life, he argues that the human soul is bound by God to do only that which is good. Thus, society is only composed of people whose will is to take good actions.
Attaining the deepest state of spirituality and peek of good is a factor that both Descartes and Plato concur. In the same view and reasoning as Plato, Descartes understands that there is a need to go through perception and reason out ones understanding before reaching out for the right conclusion. Simply put, one should not come to a conclusion before thinking critically about the repercussions of the decision. Reasoning is the best way of making sound conclusions according to both Six Meditations on First Philosophy and Allegory by the Cave. Without prior reasoning before coming to conclusions, one can be misguided by their decisions.
The repercussions that follow are just but a result of the decisions people make. Descartes and Plato agree that without reasoning and cautiously analyzing the effects of the decisions that one makes, then it will take as much more time to repair the damages incurred. Reasoning, they claim, is a major source of building up knowledge. Without reasoning, knowledge cannot be developed or advanced.
There is also an agreement based on Descartes view of imagination and perception and Platos view on the same. Descartes states that imagination is what one can see with the eyes inside their mind, whereas, perception is one of the several options of things one sees in their mind when one imagines an object that has been mentioned yet does not know it. Plato also shares this view but in a different way.
He says that perception is what one thinks is the form of something, whereas, imagination is the actual form of something, that one is aware of, yet you cannot physically see it. Descartes explains imagination by using a triangle; the three-sided object whereas Plato explains it using the shadows of prisoners. Descartes explains perception using a chiliagon, while Plato explains it using the names the prisoners give to the shadows of the puppets.
From the two scholarly materials by Plato and Descartes, it is evident that the two philosophers share the same views on human perception and knowledge in general. Their books show a similarity in their opinions but a different way of expressing the shared line of thought. Despite the difference in their time of existence, Descartes and Plato share the same reasoning and understanding largely. However, when critically thought of, readers can realize that Descartes offers a new way of thinking considered modern philosophy.
Platos representation of the cave in Allegory of the Cave Republic Book VII is shown as an analogy for the condition of mankindfor their being educated or dearth of it. In Allegory of the Cave Plato explains us clearly the way to take out some of its details: the cave is the place available to view or insight. The world outside the cave is the logical place; which is reachable to logic but not to insight; the voyage outside of the cave into daylight of the world is the souls inclination to the logical territory. (Valleau, Finnbogason, 341) The mentors job is to turn the souls around instead of inducing the knowledge into a soul that does not contain it. This reorganization of souls has working dimensions as well as mental ones.
In Allegory of the Cave Glaucon believes that the cave is an odd image, and the people are weird prisoners. However, Socrates thinks that these people are just like us. Socrates believes that no doubt we are not actually chained and do not look powerlessly at shadows created by those intended to mislead us. Nonetheless, according to Plato many things regarding our state make the cave an appropriate image. The prisoners see the shadows and only, relic, likenesses of animals and people, shed these shadows.
Therefore, according to Plato, the prisoners are far away from truth or realityhowever, they do not recognize this and would not accept it if the advise was given to these people. The prisoners would be temporarily deprived of sight and incapable to distinguish the objects that cast the shadows on the wall. (Valleau, Finnbogason, 349) If the prisoners were untied and asked to turn and face the flashing light, it would hurt their eyes, and they would perhaps prefer to return to their contented and known gloominess of the prison. (Plato, 195)
In the Allegory of the Cave Plato gives us a clearer view of the image drawn from the cave. Plato is of the opinion that the cave is the place that is reachable to insight. Furthermore, Plato differentiates between the perceptible realm and the logical realm, among things understood by perception and those understood by logic. (Plato, 197) The insight realm consists of common observable things; the logical realm consists of ideas. The chained prisoner or in other words, the ordinary unqualified person does not have any opportunity to reach to logical ideas. Indeed, a common person does not even have a clue that such a thing exists. Moreover, such a person has access to shadows of the perceptible instead of the perceptible things themselves. He might be able to recognize these shadows but still he would not know what to do next because his knowledge is inadequate. (Valleau, Finnbogason, 356) Thus in Allegory of the Cave Plato explains that the world exterior to the cave is the logical place reachable to rational but not insight. The things in the actual world are factual than the images in the cave, in view of the fact that they are the originals of which the images are similar.
Works Cited
Plato. The Republic. Book 7. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. New York: Vintage, 1991. 25391.
Valleau , Al; Finnbogason, Jack. The Nelson Introduction to Literature. Second Canadian Edition. Published by Nelson Education Ltd. 2004. ISBN/ISSN: 0176415505.
The mind can best be shaped to understand the world through ideas (forms) rather than material experiences and sensations. The highest type of reality is the one that is based on knowledge of forms as illustrated through the allegory of the cave.
The nature of the mind and its relationship to other means of understanding the world
The allegory of the cave proves that man is able to perform his day to day functions without necessarily comprehending his true reality. Within the cave, there are prisoners who have been chained throughout their lives. The prisoners cannot turn their heads and the only thing they can see is a wall. Although there are people who pass behind the prisoners through a roadway, it is never really possible to know that those are the real objects that reflect their shadows against the prisoners wall.
Even the echo that permeates from the real people is translated as sound from the shadows. These individuals have therefore interpreted what they see or their material sensation for reality. They have not stopped to think that there could be a deeper meaning behind the shadows. In fact, even the things they identify or name are all related to what they perceive passing before them as shadows and not the actual objects.
Language therefore reflects their perception of reality through the physical. Plato argues that this never really denotes the real meaning. To get to understand what is actually going around us, one needs to go beyond the physical and grasp these things with the mind because that is the only pathway to conceptualizing reality (Brians, 52).
The prisoner who was set free and shown the actual sources of the shadows actually realized that he had been mistaken all along. His reliance on his senses alone was not sufficient to grasp the world around him. This prisoner had to be set free from his old perceptions in order to truly get to know what was going on around him. The same thing can be said about the process of acquisition of concepts.
Physical objects often give mistaken views of what things really are. In order for one to truly grasp how the world works, it is essential for that individual to abandon the old concepts formed through materials and experiences with tangibles. Similarly, in order for the mind to truly conceptualize then it must challenge the status quo. The people in the cave are content with their circumstances. The dim fire light and their state of darkness is what they had come to know.
They do not realize that there is something wrong with their existence. Because they have never been exposed to another kind of existence, they are content with the little they possess. Here, the mind has not been engaged fully and this has resulted in a less fulfilling life (Plato & Jewett, 516).
When one of the prisoners had the privilege of being exposed to the light and after he saw what the sun was all about, he soon found out that their previous life has been a misconception. This individual is therefore more enlightened than his counterparts who are still held in the cave.
He now finds the way of life of the people in the cave to be pitiable and therefore decides that his duty is to get his people out of their state of not knowing. However, most of them do not receive his ideas openly. Some actually despise him and believe that there is no truth other than the one tied to their existence.
Plato was trying to illustrate that the mind has the capability of finding real knowledge but this will always come into conflict with knowledge obtained through material sensations as was the case with the people in the cave. One must be ready to confront these old ideas in order to facilitate true intellectualism and enlightenment within ones society.
Indeed the process of enlightening others is always an uphill task because this entails dealing with a lot of resistance. Plato was well aware of Socrates life as a philosopher. He even discussed it with his counterpart during an analysis of the allegory. Socrates had engaged his mind to move beyond the senses in pursuit of truth.
When he found this truth, he knew that it was now his duty to free other people from the chains of material perceptions. His society rejected the truth that he was providing them and eventually sentenced him to death. It can be deduced from Socrates life that trying to inform others about the truth may rarely be successful. Every single individual must actively engage his mind and seek for it.
It is only after one has fully experienced this transformation that one can really testify to knowing and believing the truth. Here, one can see that the nature of the mind is such that it must interact with different paradigms so as to establish which one represents reality and which one does not. Telling people about truth often entails the use of language. Plato often believed that language is comparable to the shadows that the prisoners saw on their wall.
Individuals who are deeply committed to a certain view often get to that level by experiencing that view using their mind. Material perceptions are quite strong and in order to supersede them, it is essential to really experience reality. The mind works not by hearing the truth but by interacting and gaining an experience with it (Brians, 94).
In the allegory of the cave, the games that the prisoners were playing were used to symbolize the trivialities and cares of the world. Plato believed that the mind often undergoes a transformation once one encounters the light or enlightenment. Consequently, one finds it almost impossible to be put back in the earth and to gauge issues using the same standards that other men who have not seen the light utilize.
In other words, once the mind undergoes a transformation through knowledge of forms, it cannot again go back to the old method of using sensations in order to make sense of the world. These standards often become unacceptable and even pathetic to the person who has been transformed by knowledge. These people are still in mental bondage and their way of life it too far from reality (Warmington, 78).
Plato firmly believed in Socrates ideas yet those very ideas are eventually what led to so many people being angry at him. Socrates often held that the invisible world is where the truth lies and that those who choose to see with their eyes are blind to the truth. He believed that using the eyes or the senses for that matter contributed to the obscurity of the world because it was impossible to really know the world through the use of ones eyes.
On the other hand, Socrates argued that the intelligible is really found in the invisible world. In fact, this philosopher was so bold as to say that the sun lit world of the senses could not be taken as real and good. Those people who believed it to be so were actually putting themselves in a den of ignorance and evil. It is only the few who possess the courage to really get out of this den that get enlightened.
When using the allegory of the cave, Plato was deriving his teachings from these affirmations made by Socrates and this eventually adds gravity to the assertion that the mind can truly gain an understanding of its surrounding only if it surpasses the visible and reaches for the invisible.
Indeed this allegory brings to the fore the issue of spirit consciousness. In order to really know oneself, one must think of the cave as the daily responsibilities and daily life and the life outside the cave as a life referring to the never ending spirit. In this regard, for one to really understand knowledge, one must get to the spirit. However, this is not possible unless one can become a real master of ones mind.
One must think of the world and the light in it as an illusion and one must find comfort or rely on the transcendental consciousness. The latter refers to an eternal realm that is synonymous to real good. This allows the mind to be at ease and hence allows it to get to the real meaning of life (Plato & Jowett, 520).
The allegory also provides an in-depth explanation of what life is about through ones influences and exposure. In fact, many stereotypes or religions can sometimes be interpreted as the cave in the allegory. A person who has grown up knowing about a certain religion to the point of becoming a fundamentalist will often close his mind to other alternatives.
This is someone who believes that the only truth that exists out there is the truth that he or she was taught in his or her religion. To this end, the religion becomes like a cave which blocks him from really engaging with the truth. Even though other people might approach such a person and try to convince him about the truth, it is likely that such a person will not accept that truth because he has closed his or her mind to it.
In order for one to be exposed to reality, it is necessary for one to be open to the possibility of there being another realm. Fundamentalist religions often act as caves that close followers minds to knowledge and reality. It is often essential for such individuals to open their minds so that they can undergo a paradigm shift.
The allegory of the cave also illustrates how each and every member of society has a certain kind of cave in their mind. This often emanates from impulsive thought processes that get formulated into the mind by ones sensations. However, once the mind, which is synonymous to the cave, starts allowing reality to permeate it then the cave will start being dismantled.
It is here where the mind will start to build up real knowledge and therefore look beyond certain reality so that it can be fully understood. The point at which one can get to real self actualization will occur when one breaks down this barrier of the cave (Warmington, 201).
Certain underlying truths can only be accessed once the mind tears down these structures and replaces it with truth structures. The cave is usually created by those experiences that people go through and it often closes people off certain possibilities. The truth is very expansive and cannot be contained within the cave mentality.
Platos allegory on the mind and its relation to material sensations also provides a way of understanding what real leadership is. When an individual had the privilege of seeing the light, then that person goes back to his former life, that person would genuinely want to bring the other people in his society to par with his reasoning. This kind of leader would take up the responsibility of teaching not because of a quest for power, fame, glory or any other superficial reason; such a person would want to govern so that he or she could make his society a better place.
The true leader is therefore one who does it out of an obligation rather than selfish needs. In other words, this person will be able to forsake all other material based desires in order to meet the needs of his society. In essence this reflects maturity of the mind. One cannot be in a position where one can change ones society without forsaking the things that are related to the external.
It is also essential to take note that real change in ones life only takes place when one has taken charge of ones reality. Humankind often allows the external to design and create its life; this is what makes up what people become. Such individuals will often go through life without thinking through it.
They will take each day as it comes and not even bother taking a conscious decision to take charge of their existence. Through the mind, mankind has the option to take over his existence and this must be a conscious step taken by all who dare (Watt, 152).
One would wonder why philosophers even bother with the other members of society since it has been clearly proven that they will meet resistance stemming from sense related inhibitions. Plato believes that it is a true leaders responsibility to take on this task because that is the only way that society will get better or it is the only way that the truth can really get to other people.
As an enlightened person, one must be a representation of goodness because the rest of society may not yet be able to comprehend these kinds of concepts. Progress in human development can only be realized by looking at reality in a different way and this is facilitated through the sacrifices of enlightened leaders.
It is also interesting to note how man can resign himself to a life of reality if he does not limit his mind to his perceptions. Ones conception of truth and reality can affect ones capacity to access education and be changed by it. It can also affect ones spirituality and ones ability to reach real spiritual consciousness.
It also permeates public life and the way politics plays out in peoples lives. The mistaken belief in limited perspectives of the sensations eventually permeates in everyday life and therefore makes ones existence flawed. It all starts with the mind since everything else is as a result of a decision made by one individual.
Human beings have an innate fear of new ideas. This normally occurs because such ideas will expose the limitations in ones former thinking. In fact, such fears are so intense that instead of questioning the new ideas, humans would rather take the short way out and kill the bearer of the message. Great reasoning naturally offends its listeners and thinking is not a thing that is taken in stride.
The prisoners in the cave were offended by the assertions of the prisoner who had seen the light because ignorance is blissful. This illustrates that when one is bound in the world of sensations, one can ever really embrace knowledge. Such a person will try to question it or may try to resort to other drastic measures. This means that without truly engaging the mind, one can never really be virtuous. One would always be willing to employ radical methods in order to resist ideas.
This allegory is also important in illustrating the difficulties that the mind goes through during transitions from light to darkness and darkness to light. The prisoner who had been removed from the cave soon came to find out that it was going to be very difficult for him to adjust from the darkness to the light. He almost felt like he was being blinded by it.
On the other hand, after studying the sun, the seasons and reality, he also found it very difficult to adjust back to the darkness in the cave. Putting knowledge into his mind is what assisted in these transitions. He was able to get past these difficulties through knowledge. Therefore one can assert that real adjustment occurs when the mind is continually fed with ideas (Watt, 191).
Conclusion
The mind must be truly engaged in order to get to the truth. This may involve loosening one out of the chains that emanate from false beliefs. These beliefs are brought on by ones experiences with the material sensations. Consequently, for one to get to the truth, one must supersede this superficial existence.
However, the truth is often not told or explained through language, it must be experienced by the mind by specific individuals. Enlightenment also creates good leaders because their minds have already overcome the ignorance and darkness of the visible world.
References
Brians, P. The allegory of the Cave. NY: Brickhouse, 1998
Jocobus, Lee. Plato the allegory of the cave
Watt, Stephen. Introduction: the theory of forms. London: Wardsworth, 1997
Plato, D. & Jowett, B. Platos the republic. NY: Modern library, 1941
Warmington, Rouse. Great dialogues of Plato. NY: Signet classics, 1999
The parable of the cave is a philosophical argument by Plato depicting the dilemma what human life is and what it means. In his vivid presentation, human beings live imprisoned in a cave throughout their lives, unable to see the world around them as they are chained in such a way as to prevent them from turning round.
There is a distant fire above and behind them, so they cannot move up or backwards. Furthermore, ahead of them, there is a wall that blocks their path. The bottom line is that movement is very limited in this cave. Occasionally, the carriers of the objects speak to one another, but their voices reach the prisoners in form of echoes from the wall ahead of them. Since they are not able to see who is speaking, they are convinced that the echoed voices are from shadows they see ahead of them.
With time, the prisoners begin to interpret the images and sounds they see and hear as constituting reality. The more they become accustomed to this world of illusion, the more it gets difficult to dissuade them to see what reality actually is. After observing the shadows keenly for a while, they get used to the pattern of movement, and whoever correctly predicts the shape that will pass next is applauded as being knowledgeable (Plato 90).
The analogy of the cave explains why many humans find the world of fantasy too comfortable for them to contemplate leaving it. They would rather live in illusions than face the truth, which is too much to bear. The cave idea is born of the fact that we go through cultural assimilations, and our characters are shaped by the environment we live in.
Therefore, it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get out of such conditioning and adopt a broad mind that can appreciate other dynamics of life. This is what creates the shadow people who cannot move their head around and appreciate the outside world in totality (Plato 90).
The only way a prisoner can get out of the cave is through an emancipation of the mind from such mental slavery. This is a herculean task because their path is constrained by the fire behind them, the wall all around the cave and the chain to their limbs. The prisoners who are set free to explore the world will find themselves in a culture shock.
They will find most of the practices and beliefs of their fellow human beings from other socializations too strange and unacceptable (Benjamin, 67). If they are shown the objects that cast the shadows, they would believe the objects are a fictional creations of some very great mind. Their reality is the shadows and nothing else.
Things are much worse when the prisoner is actually taken out of the cave to sunlight. This is a move to greater levels of intellectual capability where one can distinguish between objects of reality and fiction with utmost clarity. According to Fullerton, the eye is unusual among the sense organs in that it needs a medium, namely light, in order to operate (56). The light must, however, be of medium intensity.
If it is too bright, especially when one has just moved from darkness, the eye experiences too much pain to bear and would either close or the person would turn around to avoid looking at the source. If it is too little, the human being will not see clearly and end up with an optical illusion. This is applicable to the intellectual eye as well. The prisoner who leaves the cave rather absorbs a little of the changes at a time than takes in everything in one swoop.
With time, however, the culture shock waves of honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment and mastery phases. In the honeymoon phase, the practices in the new environment are amusing, and a person links them romantically to his/her own culture. After the prisoner has made enough observations, he begins to get used to the culture and actually begins to love it. The most interesting part of the whole cycle is a reverse culture shock.
The prisoner begins to scorn at his/her own former culture which he found difficult to shed off. In other words, if the prisoner leaves the bright light of the sun and goes back to the cave, he will find it too dark for him to see his way around. Walking in the cave is difficult he falters and even steps on peoples toes trying to walk. His former society begins to take note and you hear comments to the effect that he dropped his cultural orientation and his peoples way of life and exchanged it with the ways of foreigners.
However, Plato argues that we should not be quick to pass judgment on such a disoriented person before we discern the exact cause of the disillusionment (Dova 67). The whole idea of education is about pointing the student in the right direction to acquire knowledge by relying on the strength of his or her mental capabilities. Plato argues that it is the intellect that can understand the realities of the world, not the senses.
Works Cited
Dova, Benjamin. The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues. Grand Rapids, MI: Discover Publishers, 1992. Print.
Fullerton, George Stuart. An Introduction to Philosophy. Scotts Valley, California: CreateSpace Publishers, 2011. Print.
Plato. Apology: Crito and Phaedo of Socrates. Charleston, South Carolina: Bibliobazaar Publishers, 2007. Print.
Platos cave represents human knowledge showing the intellectual journey to truth as a gradual and arduous process .[1]He likens people with prisoners in a cave whose only perception of realism is a play of shadows spread on a wall that faces them. Everyone has a role to play in bringing change to his/her life.
One has to make a decision of leaving the thoughts that prevent them from perceiving the world from a broad perspective. Only then can they get an understanding of the real world. Plato sums this in four stages. The first stage includes forming an attitude that is based on the realitys outward appearance constituted by sights and sounds of experience though it takes a while before the human mind distinguishes reality.
The second stage is the ability to recognize the distinction between a deceptive entity of knowledge and the real ones. In this case, the shadows of the carving walls and the true carvings. The use of puppeteers by Plato inside the cave and things outside indicate that empirical discoveries never penetrate the ideal realm of truth thus calling for the need to move outside the cave.[2] The third stage is where people get outside the cave into the sun that tends to cause their blindness.
This sun indicates the light of truth thus causing reality to be foreign to the familiar. This makes it hard to understand the nature of reality that happens to be ideal and not material as Plato later realized. Accordingly, practice and learning are key ingredients for realization of the true form of reality. The fourth stage is where one acknowledges the intellectual light source. Plato realized that the Good does elucidate concepts that help us to understand truth.
The prisoner knew that holding his head high and standing on his dignity would signify victory as far as addressing the masses was concerned. Plato maintains this concept by saying that it is only those that can pull off enlightenment that ought to be leaders of the rest.[3] The prisoner is a leader because he has achieved enlightenment over time and he is well able to lead the rest. He did not resist enlightenment as others did but rather embraced it with open arms.
The allegory of the cave can be compared with Breytens You Screws which holds that people will always drag you to the pit immediately they realize that the light has finally shone upon you. Breyten having been a prisoner for while who never let his form of imprisonment deter him from advancing in knowledge, is addressing the screws who turned up in large numbers to listen to him as a way of gaining knowledge.
He says that he does not regret much of having been shattered from the world but I normally resent all attempts at dragging me back particularly when they come from the sentimentally deprived or the vicarious heart-eaters and self shitters who wallow in victimization and heroism by proxy .[4]
Ordinary folks that have not been enlightened will always misunderstand them that have the intellectual insight. The individual in the Plato at last understands his environment and tenaciously overcomes the challenges experienced in the cave, in this case being its mental incapacitation, through a long and tortuous intellectual journey.
In conclusion, everyone needs to change their thoughts and attitudes to be able to live a worthy life. There is nothing for the free or the slaves since all have opportunities even if they are bloated. Mental imprisonment is definitely the worst situation in life as far as enlightenment is concerned.
References
Breyten, Breytenbach. You Screws. Harpers Magazine, Feb. 2007.
Plato, Allan. The Allegory of the Cave, The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
Ralkowski, Mark. Heideggers Platonism. London, GBR: Continuum International Publishing, 2009.
Footnotes
Alan Plato, The Allegory of the Cave, The Republic of Plato, ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 134.
Mark Ralkowski, Heideggers Platonism, (London, GBR: Continuum International Publishing, 2009), 102.
Mark Ralkowski, Heideggers Platonism, (London, GBR: Continuum International Publishing, 2009), 113.
Breytenbach Breyten, You Screws, Harpers Magazine February, 2007, 15.
Socrates starts by explaining a scenario to Glaucon. He tells Glaucon to picture prisoners in a cave, chained in a manner that movement is impossible. These prisoners have been in this position since childhood. Not only their limbs are immobile, but their heads are also in a fixed position such that the only thing they can see is the wall in front of them. Behind these prisoners is a large fire.
There is fire between the prisoners and the walkway. People pass by this walkway-carrying luggage and puppets of men and animals on their head. Using the shadows cast by the passersby, they take turns to guess the object that will pass.
They refer to the shadows using names of the real object. The passersby make some noise as they pass. The echo of the sounds made by the people walking along the walkway is what the prisoners hear. They do not know that the shadows are representations of real people. They also believe that the echo is sound coming from the shadows. This they believe to be so because it is what they have been seeing and hearing since their childhood.
Pluto then uses Socrates to introduce a new situation. Freedom is granted to a prisoner, and he is allowed to look at the things that cast the shadow shown to him. He does not recognize them; instead, he still believes that the casted shadow is more real than what he sees.
When the prisoner looks at the fire, he turns his head away from it towards the wall to escape its glare. He is then dragged out of the cave into the surface where there is sunlight. At first, it is too much, but then he gets used to it after spending some time at the surface. The prisoners who remained in the cave believed that the released prisoners mind was corrupted. According to them, he had lost grasp of the reality they have always known.
Personal response
Plutos creativity and his vast understanding of human nature make him create a scenario that educates humanity by use of an imaginary world. He simply talks about human ignorance and the reluctance to embrace reason. People tend to believe only in things that they have known to be true.
They stick to tradition and culture passed to them from their ancestors. They are afraid to explore the alternative that they do not know. Once introduced to them, they first seek refuge in their initial belief. This is illustrated when the prisoner look at the fire then back to the wall.
Plutos analysis of human nature is indeed insightful. Up to date, people stick to culture and tradition not caring to explore the other side of the coin. An example is religion in the world. Humans tend to believe in the religion that they have known since childhood. It is not easy, for example, to convince a Christian to abandon his faith, become a Muslim, and vice versa.
Another example is a suicide bomber who has ever believed, since childhood, that dying for his cause will make him gain favour before the eyes of the Lord. He knows that taking more people with him amounts to greater rewards and will never listen to any reason against this.
Pluto also teaches that once humans discover the truth; they develop a need to stay in it. They develop deeper yearning for more of this truth, and that is when they realise that all along they have been ignorant. When they try to explain this to their colleagues who are still in darkness, they are the ones looked down upon, and regarded as being a danger to society.
Pluto uses the prisoner taken to the surface and brought back into the cave to illustrate this. It is unwise to remain true to perceptions instilled in one from childhood. People should listen to reason and consider all alternatives rather than remaining loyal to indigenous beliefs.
In striving to progress and outperform the others, people have always attached great importance to accumulating their life experience so that future generations could benefit from it and learn from the mistakes and achievements of the past. Wisdom has been respected as a hallmark of age and experience, and those who possessed it stood high in the social esteem.
The issue of passing on experience from generation to generation was topical already in the ancient times, with Ancient Greece being one of the strongholds of first educational systems. Education was considered then in a broad philosophical context not only as passing on practical knowledge but also as shaping ones mind and soul for philosophical contemplation and perception of life.
In this respect it is demonstrative to view the renowned allegory of the cave, provided by Plato in his fundamental Socratic dialogue The Republic, as a revealing conception of education. The latter is interpreted by Plato as enlightenment of uneducated mind that once informed should share the knowledge with the rest for the purpose of his/her homelands prosperity.
In his allegory, Plato draws a parallel between the general public and people who are imprisoned in a deep and dark cave. It is impossible to turn their heads towards the enlightened entrance to the cave as their necks have been chained since their childhood, so they only can see before themselves.
Behind the prisoners a fire is playing, so that they can see their own shadows and the shadows of one another thrown by the fire on the opposite wall of the cave in fact, shadows are their reality. Supposing one of the prisoners is freed and let go to the real world, he would at first be struck by the light coming from outside; having overcome pain in his eyes, he then deliberately moves to the open air and at first perceives what he sees there as imaginary, as his only reality so far have been shadows in the cave.
But step by step he is moved forward, conceiving real life, until he is finally brought to the source of life itself, to the sun which would now be the essence of reality and the embodiment of the ultimate truth. Thus, thinking back to his former fellows in the cave, he pities them, for they do not know the truth and lead an existence in a world of imaginary things which they take for real. (Plato 219221)
Such is the thought-provoking allegory, and the first and foremost association that is evoked by it is that of the process of education. Initially, people possess some basic knowledge relying on their first-hand experience of life. They consider their lives and ideas of it to be perfectly right and correct, since they do not know anything else to compare them with; there are no competing ideas which could shake their convictions.
As soon as additional information appears, either brought by someone else or acquired on ones own, the old points of view are challenged, as they are compared to new ones and there emerges doubt as to the veracity and credibility of the old ones. The more information one gets, the more knowledge one accumulates, the more choice one has between multiple options, the more food for thought one receives, and as a consequence, the more doubt and vacillation one experiences.
In the painstaking search for the one-and-only truth, one passes a long way through stages of first encounter with new facts or ideas, distrust to them, subsequent interest in them, their careful exploration and comparison to the previous ones, and their acceptance or rejection.
In order to pass through this way successfully and fruitfully without overlooking some important and valuable ideas, it can turn out beneficial to have a wise guide on that way a person who is experienced and learned enough to help one separate the wheat from the chaff and to direct ones steps in the right way.
There are multiple things to learn and the ways of learning them are countless, so are the possible interpretations of them and the value and importance one ascribes to the knowledge gained. Assuming that an unprepared mind can easily get lost in the jungle of available information, its guidance is vital for the purpose of shaping a reasonable and systematized outlook.
As such, education can be viewed as streamlining ones mental energy in the right direction that benefits both the learner and his/her society. And it becomes the task and the social responsibility of philosophers (and, by analogy, educators) to re-enter the cave and bring educational enlightenment to the broad public however resisting the latter may be.
Fairly enough, one may ask: why should an enlightened person return back to the cave and risk all the misunderstanding and rejection directed at him/her by the uneducated people? Plato reviews this problem in a patriotic key, claiming that the civil responsibility of anyone who is lucky enough to obtain proper education is to go back from where he/she came and apply the knowledge to enlighten the rest of the nation.
In order to acquire knowledge of higher degree, it is vital not to stop in ones education and not to rest on ones laurels but to proceed on the thorny path of wisdom that lies through returning back to the uneducated. Otherwise the once educated person is as useless and shallow as the uninformed ones (Plato 224).
If to someone it may seem unjust that those who have obtained enlightenment are forced to go back to the previous miserable existence, Plato motivates this necessity by the fact that education has been conferred on such people by the state, as a big favor. Therefore, it is the moral obligation and the civic duty to return the favor and sacrifice their own unconcerned existence for the sake of their state prosperity.
Moreover, it is the task of the state governors to oblige the educated people to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not (Plato 225). He claims that good education is not an own merit of a person: it is provided by the state; therefore, the state has the right to claim devoted service and implicit obedience from those who have benefited from it.
Additionally to fulfilling ones civic duty, the educated people get the chance of furthering their education by enlarging their knowledge. Brought back into the conditions of intellectual darkness, they are able from the height of their wisdom to approach such existence at a qualitatively new level, developing new skills and awareness.
Platos allegory of the cave is an unprecedented resource for educational inspiration, since together with discussing the importance of pure knowledge Plato emphasizes the necessity of sharing and distributing it among the uninformed. Such unselfish approach to the issue of teaching can be a good example for the modern educators, instructing them on the thorny path of their labor of love.
Works Cited
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Ed. and trans. Benjamin Jowett. Elibron Classics, 2002. Print.
The Allegory of the Cave is among Platos philosophical writings that are presented in the form of allegory. The definition of an allegory writing is given as the type of writing having two levels of meanings: literary and allegorical meaning&where a literary meaning is the content or the subject matter and allegorical meaning is the symbolic or metaphorical suggestion (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d, para 1).
In Platos Allegory of the Cave, there is much darkness in the cave and only very little light can be found in this place and it is so hard for a person who is in the cave to see the objects around. In the cave, we have people, around which chains have been tied on their feet as well as their necks, making them unable to move freely. They are prisoners (Cohen, 2006).
This cave forms one world and there is another world outside the cave and between the two, a tall wall has been erected. A large number of people move on the wall carrying various things and their shadows are cast in the cave. Those living in the cave are unable to fully raise up their heads to see clearly but are only able to see the shadows about which they hold a believe that they are real. However, as much as they believe that the shadows are real, this is just their own illusion (Cohen, 2006).
On the other hand, in the outside world, there is adequate light and everything can be clearly seen by people who live their. In case one of the cave prisoners is let out of the cave and allowed to join the outer world, this person is unable to see even a single thing initially because his eyes are not used to the bright light.
However, as time goes by, the person gradually gets used to the light and starts to identify all things in the outer world. Following this, the person comes to a realization that the cave world is not a real world and it is the outer world that is real. He gets to appreciate himself and the memories of those who live in the cave come to him.
He becomes sympathetic and pitiful to those who live in the cave because he realizes that they are living in darkness. What comes to his mind is that is far much better to be under bondage while living in the outer world than being someone honored or a leader while living in the cave.
Although this person does not have the willingness to return to the cave, in case this person is returned to the cave, he can not be able to count anything in the cave because the dazzling of his eyes increases even more. In case he makes some efforts to convince those living in the cave that the cave world is not real and the outer world is what is a real one; these people will have to take away his life because they are ignorant (Meyer, Scheibel, Munte-Goussar, Meisel and Schawe, 2007).
The allegorical meaning is also attached to the allegory of the cave since a large number of symbolic ideas are employed in the writing. In symbolic terms, the cave full of darkness and chained prisoners stands for the contemporary world which is filled with ignorance. The tall wall that has been erected between the cave world and the outer world is symbolic of the limited thinking that people in the contemporary world have.
In addition, the shadow symbolically suggests the world of sensory perception which Plato considers an illusion (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d, Para 3). Basing on Platos opinion, the appearance is false and reality is somewhere, which we can not see (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d, Para 3).
Plato being a perfect philosopher suggests that the world that can be seen is a photocopy of the real world (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d,). A photocopy like this is represented by the shadows and there is only a possibility to know the reality when the spiritual knowledge can be employed. The chains is a symbol of our limitation in this material world so that we can not know the reality to know the reality; we have to break the material wolrd (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d, Para 4).
Spiritual reality is symbolized by the outer world which is filled with light and achieving spiritual realized can only be realized by breaking the chains that are used to tie us (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d, Para 4). In addition, lack of being able to see initially when one comes to the outer world is symbolic of the hardships of denying the material wolrd.
The dazzling of the yes when one is returned to the cave is symbolic of a persons hardship to agree to ignorance after one coming to know the reality. Therefore, it can be said that in the allegory of the cave , there has been criticizing by Plato of our limited existence in the material wolrd (BachelorandMaster.com, n.d, Para 4).
Overview of the Truman Show Film
The Truman Show film is a TV show that focuses on the life of a man known as Truman Burbank. Truman was lawfully adopted immediately after birth by a major TV network to be the unknowing star of television series, in which his entire life is watched by an audience of millions through an intricate series of hidden cameras (Philosophical films, 1998, para 1). The main person behind the whole of this idea of the Truman Show is someone by the name Christof.
This person sets up an artificial world , given the name as Seahaven, in which Truman starts to live. In the actual sense, this artificial world is only a quite big TV set. The dwellers of this artificial world are all actors and it is only Truman who is not aware of this fact (Philosophy and Truman Show, 2010). Truman is the only genuine person in the artificial world; the people he believes to be his mother and father as well as his spouse are people those who are being paid to engage in acting.
All through Trumans life, the TV network is determined to accomplish the mission of keeping Truman in the dark about the reality by controlling the environment in which he dwells (Clark and Cook, 1998). Even after Truman eventually comes to a realization of the reality and runs away from the constructed world , the film as well follows these events (Brearley and Sabbadini, 2008; Castle, 2011).
How fears experienced by prisoners in Platos Allegory of the cave and by Truman in Truman Show similar
It can be clearly seen that the Truman Show film bears significant similarities with Platos Allegory of the Cave. The film is full of ideas that are borrowed from ancient philosophy . The main themes that can be identified in the film and Platos allegory are such themes as total control, deceptive appearances, and looking for truth.
The fear experienced by the prisoners in the cave was similar to the fear that Truman went through in some ways. For instance, in the case where Plato talks of a Freed Man from the cave; this man gets to know the reality when he gets accustomed to the outer world. Though he has no willingness to go back to the cave, the desire and willingness to deliver the others who still stay in the cave out of darkness eventually drives him back (The Hidden Lighthouse, 2011).
On getting back to the cave, the freed man would join the prisoners and narrates to them his experience while in the outer world. The Freed man may encounter much hardships of making the prisoners to actually understand what he is talking about, in regard to the real world.
He would be dismissed by the prisoners and they would proclaim him as having gone mad. As a matter of fact, if this freed man goes on insisting on holding on to his new belief or went on persuading them to leave the cave to go to the outer world, the prisoners would turn out to be hostile to the man (The Hidden Lighthouse, 2011).
The possibility that the idea they have in mind about reality might be a mistaken one makes these prisoners to experience fear. More so, much fear is experienced by the prisoners following the idea that if they left the cave to go to the outer wolrd, they would turn out to be blind and will not be able to see the reality they have always known. Plato points out that,
men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that is better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death (Plato, 2008, pg 140).
This explanation clearly illustrates that the people in the cave would prefer killing over accepting to be taken out of the cave to the outer wolrd. They would have to do anything possible to ensure they wont go out of the cave and this is for the reason that, to them this is the real world and it is a place they feel comfortable and at peace to stay (Linstead and Linstead, 2005).
Considering the case in the film Truman show , Truman is absolutely unaware of realities around him. He is not aware that his entire life is under someones control. Relating Trumans situation to Platos Allegory, in symbolic terms, chains have been tied around Truman and he is living in a cave and there is the appearance of shadows that he believes are real.
Everyone around him are mere actors that are being paid to act and these people represents the shadows that appear on the wall, seen by Truman which are manipulated by Christof. These actors are being used by Christof to manipulate Trumans life and to bar him from knowing the truth (Papathanassopouloulos, 2011).
An element of fear comes in when Christof uses one of the actors, which Truman believes he is his father, to instill fear in Truman to prevent him from going away from the island . Through his manipulation, Christof assigns the role to Trumans father in which this father pretends to drown.
This event makes Truman to become fearful of water and fears coming closer to water, and thus remaining on the island city . By engaging in the manipulation of the world around Truman, the ability to have control over the belief held by Truman of what the reality is, is attained by Christof and he is now able to control him fully (Papathanassopouloulos, 2011).
How humanity relate to the message
As it has been considered above, both Truman and the prisoners in the cave experience some fear. This fear comes about as a result of some manipulation that is carried out by unseen forces by the victims (Truman and the prisoners). The prisoners have been put in darkness and are not able to see the light. Truman is under the manipulation of Christof and is made to believe that there is no any other wolrd. They are under control and made to be fearful to discover any other world other than the one they know as a real one.
Humanity relates to this message very closely. In the real world in which we live, people are used to the world they have been used to and brought up in.
It has to be believed that there can be a better world where there is light since one may be currently living in darkness. Basing on the religious standpoint, we have a group of people who believe very much in material things and do not consider changing their lifestyles to follow spiritual knowledge.
They are in darkness and may stay holding on to the belief that there is no any other world, which can be a world full of light and happiness. They are under the bondage of sin and are not ready to seek out for deliverance because they lives are controlled by some evil powers that they can not see.
Is fear dangerous?
As it has been established above, fear can be very dangerous. This is because, by fearing, one can remain in darkness and fail to see the light or fail to discover the real world because he has mistaken the unreal one for the real world. It is good to understand that, it is out of courage and taking a bold move to exploit the outside world that an individual is lifted to a higher new level. The fear experienced by cave prisoners makes them to remain prisoners and to stay in darkness.
The fear experienced by Truman makes him to remain in island city without realizing that all people around him are mere actors and outside, there is a whole big world full of opportunities. Therefore, it is important to realize this fact and make the necessary effort to overcome fear and go out to explore. By doing this, one can realize that the current world in which he is living in not a real world and the real world is out there and it is full of light.
References
Bachelorand Master. Plato (Allegory of the Cave). Web.
Brearley, M. and Sabbadini, A. (2008). The Truman Show : Hows it going to end . International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 89 (2): 43340.
Castle, R. (2011). The Truman Show Sociology. Web.
Clark, L. and Cook, L. (1998). The Truman Show: Curriculum guide. Web.
Linstead, S. and Linstead, A. (2005). Thinking organization. London: Routledge.
Meyer, T., Scheibel, M., Munte-Goussar, S., Meisel, T. and Schawe, J. (2007). Education within a new medium: Knowledge formation and digital infrastructure. New York: Waxman Verlag.
Philosophical Films. (1998). The Truman Show. Web.
The parable of the cave by Plato was an attempt to highlight the importance of education to the achievement of wisdom. Plato compared the parable to the processes that a person goes through as a philosopher.
He argues that once a person has been enlightened to the level of a philosopher, he should go back to the mundane world (the cave) and try to educate his fellow men. The cave or ordinary world is characterized by greed, self-interest, and struggle for political power. The parable is a criticism of people who are enslaved by their senses.
A key theme of the parable is how people are shackled to warped perceptions, unaware of the reality. It is composed of five components namely; the shadow, the ordinary man, the fire, the ascending and the descending men.
The shadow is perhaps the most complex concept to understand in this allegory. It relates to the concept of forms one of Platos many concepts which have withstood the test of time. He believed that most concepts formed by people through the five common senses do not represent real objects but they are only images or shadows created from distorted perceptions.
The same case applies to the ethics of decision-making and acting in real life, as well as our ideas regarding the truth. What people believe to be right or wrong or true in life is based on limited knowledge and experiences as opposed to complete knowledge.
The ordinary man symbolizes all persons before they have attained complete education. This man perceives nothing apart from the images on the caves wall. The images stand for all the things that we have observed in our lives. As the shadows form the set of all the things we have ever observed, they represent the reality to us.
Attaining education entails gaining the capacity to discern everything both in and outside the cave. The purpose of the third component, the fire, is to shine light on the real objects, casting off shadows on the caves wall. In this way, the fire contributes to the creation of the realities as perceived by the ordinary man.
Yet another component is that of the ascending man. This is a person who is lucky enough to be liberated from the fetters of the cave in which the ordinary man resides. After his escape, the ascending man ultimately gains a grasp of the real objects and he attains complete knowledge or education.
He realizes that the shadows were only a glimpse of the reality but not the reality itself. The fire gives us a blurred notion of what the real forms look like but, until you emerge from the cave, the only notion that you will have is an image of the reality. The last component of the parable is that of the descending man.
This is a person who has escaped from the cave and achieved full education. He then returns to the cave to enlighten his fellow men on what he learned outside the cave. His objective is to show them that what they believe to be real is just a shadow of the reality but the reality itself is different.
This narration is essentially about how Socrates was persecuted by his contemporaries because of his wisdom. The reason why the descending man went back to the cave after having been liberated was to inform his unenlightened colleagues about the beauty of the world outside the cave.
As a result of his bid to educate his fellow men he was put to death. The allegory corresponds very much to our lives today. Despite having very many civil liberties such as the freedom of speech, we have failed to use these freedoms to think positively, basically confining ourselves to a cave.
The sole way of becoming emancipated from this confinement is by being open-minded and by looking at things from all perspectives. We should also heed the counsel of philosophers and take an honest assessment of their views instead of banishing them off-hand.
The philosophers possess knowledge of the world outside the cave. However, the cave dwellers think that the descending man (the philosopher) is insane when he gives them an account of the world as it exists outside. The situation is the same today in the political arena where ordinary people accustomed to the ways of dishonest politicians, often persecute those who seek to change the status quo.
The real mad men, however, are the ordinary men who are ready to discriminate the enlightened people based on warped beliefs. In spite of the persecution, those who are fully educated still feel that it is their moral responsibility to liberate the ordinary people from their ignorance which the politicians use to take advantage of them.
There are many enlightened people in the modern world who become political prisoners because of their attempts to educate the masses about their political and civil rights and liberties.
Why Plato Finds Ascent to the Truth Confusing and Painful
According to Plato, the journey towards enlightenment is long and winding and it involves a lot of painstaking. The inhabitants of the cave have to struggle in order to free themselves and attain full education. The ascending man had to pass through the phase of the shadow of reality before entering the phase of intellectual reasoning and comprehension.
He had to be transformed from an ordinary person to an enlightened one and this transformation called for a lot of courage to go against the orthodox, and to withstand the truth as truth sometimes is intimidating. As Socrates says concerning the ascending man, he is likely to experience pain from the glare of light (enlightenment).
The reason for this distress lies in the fact that knowing the truth may at times be disturbing. Other virtues required to obtain full wisdom are curiosity and scrupulousness. For a person to become liberated from the shackles of ignorance, one has to reason beyond the limits of the ordinary world.
This would ordinarily need one to give up some leisure and withstand the criticism of cynics and skeptics who do not see the value of pursuing wisdom. The journey to attaining enlightenment is confusing since there are a lot of false and ill-conceived ideas on what should be the truth. Therefore, it requires a keen intellect to separate the truth from the half-truths and the outright false notions.
My Personal Experience that Illustrates Platos Allegory
Many uneducated voters in the developing countries usually elect mediocre politicians who come from their tribes instead of voting for those candidates who are likely to bring the most needed economic development.
When educated persons try to run for political posts, they always lose because politics in these countries are tribal-based as opposed to issue-based. The uneducated voters in developing countries can be equated to Platos ordinary men living in a cave as far as political enlightenment is concerned.
The educated persons who attempt to vie for political positions, on the other hand, are like Platos descending men who feel that it is their moral responsibility to free their colleagues from ignorance.
The disclosure of the States nature, rules and guardians is considered to be centralized in Platos theory reflected in the work Republic. It is necessary to underline the fact that the thinker strived to clarify common features of his Divided Line and the allegory of the Cave; the analysis of his philosophy gives an opportunity to realize and investigate Platos vision of the path experienced by human beings on their way to knowledge and truth realization; the thinker managed to underline the unity of Divided Line and the allegory of the Cave on the basis of education place reflected through the Good perception.
In accordance with Platos divided line, the world consists of two parts, intellectual and the one of visible objects. The Good is considered to be at the top of everything; it illuminates and sustains the res. Platos tried to demonstrate the idea that the objects forms help human beings to obtain ideal understanding, intelligence and knowledge. The lowest level is based on reason and thought reflected through axioms; this aspect is presented on the basis of various mathematical principles. So, Platos idea was to show that seeing the objects is followed by information perception about these objects, leading to the formation of certain beliefs on the basis of sound, sights, etc. As a result formed beliefs get people from one place to another being supported by axiomatic thought and reasoning. Platos stated that one more element was concentrated on imagination presented through reflections and dreams, and stimulating our creativity.
The theory of divided line is closely connected with Platos Allegory of the Cave, through which the thinker managed to underline the fact, that humans cross the line from ignorance cave, to reach the steep path leading to the light, allowing us seeing the shadows of the objects, and the objects themselves. One addresses the top, that is the Good, reasoning about it and making certain conclusions, resulting in realization that the Good is the true cause of everything in the world.
When we turn our eyes to things whose colors are no longer in the light of day but in the gloom of night, the eyes are dimmed and seem nearly blind, as if clear vision were no longer in them, yet when one turns them on things illuminated by the sun, they see clearly and vision appears in those same eyes. (Plato, VI, 508)
The person trying to avoid the cave limitations, is on the way to true reality realization, being able gasping the forms. Plato stated that visible objects were only shadows of the truth; it is necessary to stress that the philosophers theory is based on the principles of getting knowledge about the objects on the basis of personal learning focus. The analogy of Platos Allegory of the Cave and Divided Line can be characterized by realities and shadows of education. (Plato, VII, 518)
In accordance with Platos beliefs, the invisible truths really exist and are covered by things which can grasp. It is necessary to stress that the divided line can be interpreted as the descending path from beliefs to imagination.
The Good allows your mind to see the forms just as the light of sun allows you to see things. (Plato, VII, 518)
Plato strived to demonstrate the idea that education is the central element in turning human soul towards the Good contemplation, rather then producing a soul vision on the objects.
Divided Line and the allegory of the Cave appeared to be related through the education aspect and its elements on the soul way to truth realization. It is necessary to stress that Platos basic position appeared to be based on the Good centralization being the cause and the reason for everything in the world.
References
Plato. The Republic. Translated by Jowett, B. Oxford University Press. Web.