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Plato and Knowing the World

 

            "The Allegory of the Cave" was written by Plato, one of the greatest philosophers in history. The story of his writing was arranged as a conversation or dialogue between his great teacher, Socrates and his brother, Glaucon. To make understand an easy realism, Plato showed all of the elements and people as symbols or metaphors to indicate a difference among educated and uneducated persons. In this story, there were some prisoners in an underground cave since their childhood. They were chained in their legs and necks that they could not move their head. A fire blaze was flamed up behind them and their shadow fell on a wall, which they were facing at. Some puppets of articles, statues and some objects were also moved at the front of the flame, but behind the prisoners that they could see shadows of the puppets and objects as well. Soon, one of the prisoners was released and was allowed to see the flame and puppets. Then he could compare the objects and shadows that he saw before. After that, he was forced to go out of the cave to see the sun. As soon as he looked at the sun, his eyes was dazzled. After few moments, he was able to see shadows of the objects on the ground, on the water and finally, the real objects and the sun. In compare with his prison life and present life he became very pleased. He decided to teach his prison-mates what did he learned at outside of the cave and wanted to share his experiences. .
             However, after hearing his comparison among objects and shadows the prisoners were laughing at him that accused him that he spoiled his vision by going out of the cave. He went back out of the cave, but felt that even though the prisoners did not want to learn it was his duty to teach them. However, the story was expressed some significant drawbacks of ignorance. It also provided the importance of education that can change a person's life when he contributes for the nation's social, economic and political growth.


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