Allegory of the Cave Thoughts

Maya Black Hnrs. Freshman Seminar 1100

The Allegory of the Cave written by Plato serves as an accurate depiction of our world today. Within this philosophical reading Plato touches on his idea of how education works, but vastly reveals how we perceive the world, and how that perception is in many ways wrong and inaccurate. Plato organizes this allegory in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, in which Socrates serves as the voice of Plato. Just the physical structure of the allegory relates back to Platos ideas because within a conversation or dialogue one is able to gain knowledge, and form their own opinions. The understanding of Platos ideas is not immediately interpreted from the allegory because the story uses a metaphor to convey these ideas. The ideas of Plato are revealed through the description of a metaphorical cave whose contents are symbolic to specific things in our society. It is through the description of this cave and its contents that we discover the true ideas of Plato and learn a lot about our society. First Plato begins his allegory by announcing Behold! Human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood Plato continues to describe these people that we soon discover are prisoners as chained so they cannot move, and can only see before them. When I read this statement I envisioned exactly what was described but I knew that what was being described could not be taken literally due to the title. When I began to think more symbolically I realized that the prisoners of the cave were symbolic to people of this world living in darkness. There was something more about this atmosphere that limited the prisoners than simply the chains that held them down so I had to continue reading. As I began to read further I soon discovered there was a wall that cast shadows of different objects. With the help of a blazing fire these shadows were able to be seen by the prisoners; however, because these prisoners were limited by the constraints and darkness of the cave, their perception of what the shadows were was also limited. Their only thought of what the shadows could be came only from their limited perspective. While a lot of people dont believe they live in darkness in many cases they do. The state of living in darkness is symbolic to being unaware of the realities of a situation. As people we have our own ideas and thoughts of how to interpret a situation and at times we become immune to the realities of the world. We choose what we want to believe and through these assumptions we are given false realities. I believe a quote said by David G Myers sums it up well: there is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. From this part of the Allegory of the Cave I was able to see that defining an ultimate reality of our society would be hard to determine due to the sheer amount of varying limitations people may have. In the Allegory of the Cave, the cave and its contents limited the prisoners from seeing reality, but in our actual society the object of limitation varies from person to person. Further into the dialogue, the moment of truth is revealed to the prisoner. Plato describes this moment for the prisoners as the moment when they are forced to face the sunlight, a time before the eyes had become steady. This moment is symbolic to the moment

Allegory of the Cave Thoughts

Maya Black Hnrs. Freshman Seminar 1100

where reality hits a person, or the truth is revealed. Just like the prisoner, this moment can be painful and hard to take initially but with time one can adjust. One important point that was revealed was how the whole body had to be in agreement to turn from darkness. We all have the capability of doing this but it is us who has to make this decision for ourselves to change our perspective. From this decision to change we become more open to learn and gain wisdom for according to Plato (Socratess dialogue) true education consists in directing ones mind toward what is real and important. So in other words by accepting the reality of a situation we allow ourselves an opportunity to gain knowledge and wisdom. Personally in my life I have had many moments where I had to take Platos advice for example during competition season of Cheerleading. While practicing our routine I may have been under the assumption that I was doing the routine perfect but a criticism of my coach could tell me otherwise. By accepting this criticism and facing reality I am able to improve my performance through gaining knowledge, versus if I ignored the criticism and functioned in darkness. The main determining factor was my choice to accept or not accept the reality of the situation. A limiting factor that could have affected this choice could have been my pride. By facing the truth and not allowing my pride to get in the way I was able to change for myself and also for the betterment of the team. Platos Allegory of the Cave took a real life problem and created a place that brought this issue to life. This storys symbolism creatively showed how living in darkness and becoming victim to reality limits your opportunities to learn and grow as a person. If we allow our whole bodys to commit to living in reality we will find ourselves gaining more wisdom and knowledge than ever before.