... basis of knowledge and truth and only philosophers are able to see and understand the Forms. In his allegory of the cave, Plato describes the common people as being trapped inside a dark chamber (the Cave) where all they see is shadows, shadows of a sort of 'puppet show' being made for them by the ... to be able to see the Forms and understand them, and once the Good is known, justice is clear. Now Plato believes that once this has happened, the philosopher must return into the cave, this time as a philosopherking-king, and apply his recently acquired knowledge to the rest of the people ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... doctrine The Forms. Each theory is interconnected; one could not be without the other. Here we will explore how one relates to the other. In The Cave, Plato describes a vision of shackled prisoners seated in a dark cave facing the wall. Chained also by their necks, the prisoners can only look forward and see only shadows, These shadows are produced by men, with shapes ... is releasing a prisoner from his chains, how his movements are difficult, his eye adjustment painful and suggestions of the effects of returning to the cave. The Cave suggests to us that Plato saw most of humanity livi...

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• Grade Level: High School

... only the shadows of things. Since they had not been exposed to anything else they believed that this was the world. During Plato's time, the cave dwellers could be compared to those who gained their understanding from the poets, Homer and Hesiod. In our today, one could compare them to those who get their impressions of ... more comfortable, to remain a prisoner in relative darkness and occupy oneself with what are, in reality, merely shadows. I think that Plato's Cave Allegory was very much influenced by his predecessor, Socrates. Socrates was the first philosopher to really "step out...

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... was overwhelmed by the beauty of everything. He was so overwhelmed that he wanted to share this beauty with the other cave dwellers. None of them believe a word that he said and he was killed because of his silly notions. Plato had two things in mind when writing this story and those two things were; The World of Senses and The World ... the things that they knew therefore the man who tried to shed some "light" into their lives was wrong and needed to die. Plato's message behind the story was this; " the relationship between the darkness of the cave and the world beyond corresponds to t...

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... true knowledge. We can have true knowledge about mathematics, because the rate never changes. Jacob: I've read your Allegory of the Cave. Can you explain it to me? Plato: I modeled the Allegory of the Cave after my teacher Socrates life, and his death. He like all of us was facing the wall of the ... . They forced Socrates to drink the Hemlock, because he showed them that their entire world was just the shadows flickering on the cave wall. Jacob: Who was Socrates? Plato: Socrates was my teacher, and the greatest philosopher I ever had the pleasure of meeting. Socrates would wander the ag...

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... , he was Socrates' student, creating the idea of fundamental conflicts between what could be known by reason and what could be known by senses. Plato's most famous writings include the "Republic", where we can learn about his beliefs including ethics, political philosophy, moral psychology, epistemology, and ... metaphysics. The Metaphor of the Divided Line also created by Plato represents the levels of knowledge one can obtain. From this metaphor comes the Forms, and how the understanding of this Forms and applying them will ... us believe this is normal. If we step out of this cave we...

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... weaknesses and exposing the limitations of their arguments. By refuting the flawed logic of his opponents, Socrates shows what is not justice. Plato assigns characters to Socrates" dialogue partners who argue differing opinions. The first is Cephalus, who states that justice is to return what you ... Plato's model for the ideal city is a society in which people perform the task that is best suited to them. Plato organizes people into three categories. The philosopher kings would be the elite ruling class. He expresses the superiority of the philosopher kings through the Allegory of the C...

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• Grade Level: High School

In The Republic by Plato, we find the Allegory of the Cave, a symbolic story, told by Socrates, which asserts that all humanity starts out in ignorance and is eventually pushed to seek further knowledge. Socrates believed that those who through their inclination to learn the truth leave the Cave, are dutifully to ... people walking across with objects to cast shadows with the fire. These objects are cutouts, consisting of the shapes of animals and plants. Plato is describing the Cave as the world as we are taught children. The cutouts represent our religious morals and the morals taught by ou...

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The message of Plato's myth of the cave conveys his theory of how we come to know or how we attain true knowledge. In the cavern people are chained so they can look forward only at the wall of the cave. Behind them, a fire burns which they are never able to see. Nevertheless, between them and the fire ... along which people carry pictures, puppets, and statues. The prisoners cannot see the exit out of the cave, the fire burning behind them, or the people carrying objects in front of the fire. They only see the shadows. Plato makes an Appearance/Reality distinction. For example, the relation be...

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... the psych of mankind. He describes how humans are like prisoners inside a cave. They are unable to turn their heads, and all they see is the shadow upon a wall. Plato correlates the human general process is to think and speak without any awareness of extra knowledge. The setting describes how puppets are ... would provide an answer human's awareness. How can one describe he can't see? Worse, how can one describe something he doesn't understand? Plato advocates reflective understanding in this essay. To do so, one must realize their errors by facing realism, as the prisoners do by turni...

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... create the ideal republic, hence its title. He was most likely influenced by the Athenian democracy, and his past in a political family. Plato's idea of the republic would have been impervious to corruption, as those considered the leaders would have been trained to live minimally, so that ... Another influence on his writing was likely the trial and execution of Socrates, which comprises three of his works; The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. Plato's five greatest and most well known writings are, The Apology, Phaedo, Crito, The Republic, and Symposium. Like I said above, The Apology, Crit...

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... works in mostly in dialogue form. The Republic is just one of all his works. I find The Republic to be very interesting because Plato talks about the different levels of cognition. He mentioned that wisdom, courage, moderation and justice combine together to form the Republic. According to the ... were in the level of reason and they were knowledgeable to be philosophers. The second level of the invisible world is understanding. In understanding, Plato refers to things that don't changed or that have a fixed meaning like numbers, geometrical figures because numbers and geometrical figur...

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... the darkness because this person coming from the darkness will soon be enlightened being able to see what he was unable to see in the darkness. On the other hand Plato is saying the unenlightened man cannot laugh at the enlightened man coming from the light back into the darkness because he has not seen the light. The unenlightened man is ... unable to understand the realities of what the shadows really are whereas the enlightened man can understand. I agree with the "Allegory of the cave" because one who is enlightened contains the knowledge that he could not while in the darkness. In ...

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In Plato's work "The Simile of the Cave", Socrates talks about such themes as ignorance of men, and enlightenment. You can compare this to everyday life, but I think he was talking about politics. He says " Society will never be governed either by the uneducated, who have no knowledge of the truth the intellectuals will take no practical action of their own accord, fancying themselves to be out of this world in some earthly paradise." He believes that the current people who are living and running society, are blinded by their idea of what is right, and have no will to change their views. It's ...

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... metaphor of the Divided Line and his doctrine The Forms. Each theory is interconnected; one could not be without the other. In The Cave, Plato describes a vision of shackled prisoners seated in a dark cave facing the wall. Chained also by their necks, the prisoners can only look forward and see only shadows. These shadows are produced by men, with shapes of objects or ... is releasing a prisoner from his chains, how his movements are difficult, his eye adjustment painful and suggestions of the effects of returning to the cave. The Cave suggests to us that Plato saw most of humanity livi...

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• Grade Level: High School

... philosophic mind to see and understand it. The forms are also eternal and changeless. Plato tries to explain the forms by giving a very characteristic example with "Plato's Cave." Prisoners in a cave with shadows cast on the cave's wall, produced by a system, which includes a fire, and a platform where puppet showmen perform. Plato links the opinions derived from our senses, to the perception of shadows of real objects ... , cast upon the wall of the cave. True knowledge he thinks, is the perception of the archetypal ... see Nietzsche theory of the "Free Spirit." I can see that free thi...

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... regarding human nature this quarter was quite extensive. Of notable interest was the seeming drift toward pessimism as the years went on; Socrates and Plato were arguably the most optimistic, and then came the ever-pessimistic Machiavelli, and finally we ended up with Dostoevsky and Huxley, whose grim outlooks ... more in that he made it a responsibility not only of the individual, but of the community. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato compares life to sitting in a dark cave, chained to everyone else, watching shadows on the wall. The "light" that Socrates spoke of would then be being ...

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Stretching Our Horizons Comparing and contrasting Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" with Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is a complex example of comparing bananas with tangerines. It is hard to take in the mind of a great ... Through taking very different paths the two writers make their own points clear and demand rational and logical thought of their readers. Plato was a student of Socrates and though the writing of "Allegory of the Cave" is all his own the basis for his ideas came from none other than his own teacher. The teacher you see is ... one half of the great element in Pla...

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... justice. But Socrates did not do that. Instead he sought after it. He went and asked friends of his the question: What is justice? In Plato's Republic Socrates search for justice is written in the form of a dialogue with three friends, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and Glaucon. Polecmarchus claimed that justice is ... the soul, which has three parts; interest, class and virtue. The Allegory of the cave can be related to the tripartide state. The condition of mankind can be illustrated by thinking of a group of prisoners in a cave. They can only look straight ahead. Behind them burns a fire,...

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... adjust to all of its different aspects, for example the difference in light (their eyes cannot adjust to the change in brightness). Living in a cave their whole lives, they were used to seeing just darkness and shadows on walls. Then when they went out into the outer world there was ... But you must have one justification that, like I said before, holds to be true without any belief, otherwise you will just get nowhere. Whereas Plato believes that there is no justification for anything we know. So their theories are not very similar. They each have their own beliefs and reasons. ... Kant...

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... them, they each formed unique opinions about the world, life, and how to live. Socrates was a sort of bridge to Plato and Aristotle. In fact, in a way, Socrates and Plato were the same person, a sort of "Plocrates." The Republic, which Plato wrote, is predominantly about the ideas put forth by Socrates. Socrates was infamous for his method of his interrogation and questioning ... not know what justice is, but he is also "incapable of finding it" (Republic 336e). This is a very important idea as Plato continues with the Republic. Plato writes of the analogy of the line and the cave. In th...

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... philosophers that beg for power manipulate the public. The public is unaware of the true philosophers because they are blinded by the schemes of politicians. Plato presents the Divided Line as an outline for his theory of knowledge. The image of the Divided Line is a concise model of the four different ... , physical objects, mathematics and hypotheses, and lastly is first principles and forms. With the Divided Line as a backdrop, Socrates presents the Allegory of the Cave as a metaphor that presents a person's travels from ignorance to wisdom. It can be seen as the education process for...

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... a generalized biography of another person they once knew. However, this philosophical novel fits none of the descriptions above. The book is actually an in-depth recording of a philosophy contest between Plato's teacher Socrates and several other great philosophers. What is significant about this contest is that, in it, Socrates describes his personal view of a "perfect world," and why justice is so ... state, and that a philosopher is best suited to rule a nation since he has the ability to maintain this balance. Also, Socrates claims that only the philosopher has traveled beyond the "...

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