Platos cave Essay Example

Platos cave Essay Example Platos cave Essay Platos cave Essay In the seventh book of The Republic, Plato, the Greek philosopher discusses the allegory of the cave in our situation of the understanding of the world around us. The allegory is presented as a story and then interpreted. Plato is talking about illusion and reality and how one is enlightened.` When a prisoner is freed and dragged up out from the cave into the sunlight, his eyes became painful and so blinded by the glare that he cannot be able to see anything at the moment. As his eyes adjust to the light, he will see darker shapes such as shadows, the reflections in the water and the objects around him. The last object he will be able to see is the sun. In time, he would learn to see the sun as the source that makes the seasons and the years, presides over all the things in the area and is in some way the cause of all the things that he has seen. Having seen the outside world, the prisoner remembered his companions in the cave and wants to return to share what he has seen. Upon his return to the cave, the freed man once again sits next with the prisoner. His eyesight readjusts to the dimly-lit cave and starts in telling them about what he has seen. His companions did not believe in his story instead they fear that to go outside would destroy their eyesight because they obs erved that the freed man cannot see well the shadows on the wall. They would kill if someone forces them to go outside. As Plato(517a) explains, Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. Plato calls the turning around of the soul when the eyes are turned from darkness to light. Though the soul has already power and learning capacity, it is the eyes that makes the movement of the soul into being knowledgeable, thus, it is the enlightenment process. At first, the shadows cast on the walls were assumed to be the reality and then the freed man saw the truth when he went outside the cave where there is the brilliant sun. In other words, one knows only a shadowy inner mental image of the real object. The real object cannot be immediately known until he came out from the dark into the sun to know what is reality by acquiring knowledge and reason. The cave has the following parts: chained prisoners, wall, fire, roadway and the exit. The prisoners are seated side by side facing the wall and their legs and necks are chained so that they cannot turn their head around. They can only see the wall which is in front of them. The prisoners represent the humanity who are just sitting around and not knowing the truth instead they assume that the shadows of the images cast by the objects are the real objects.The roadway is the elevated causeway that crosses through the cave and where different objects are carried across. It is situated between the prisoners and the fire. This is like a stage where the objects are carrried across and cast its shadows on the wall. The wall is like a screen where the shadows are reflected and the prisoners look and engage in naming the shapes. The fire is located behind and this gives some light in the cave. This represents the source of their limited knowledge about their world in the cave. The light that can be seen at the exit portion of the cave is the light from the sun. The exit means the departure from darkness into the light. The story of the cave relates closely to my own life by being afraid to accept some truths because of pain and disillusion. It is difficult to adjust and accept certain realities and truths in the world around us. But we must open our eyes to the real world and not stay in the dark. The story of the cave is a good paradigm for the image of the philosophic journey that all human beings are on because we are like the prisoners in the cave who isolate ourselves from the world, enjoying our projected images of ourselves and see only the distorted shadows in front of us. We are satisfied to live the lives this way. We are imprisoned without our knowing it. We are sometimes blind to the whole worlds beauty as well as the pain and horrors caused by war and poverty. We misinterpret the truths to coincide with what we believe. Our senses would refuse to accept what is eventually the truth. Some people are dragged up and forced to understand the relationship between illusion and reality. In time, these people would come to have genuine knowledge and reason that would be superior than the others. Yet, when they return to the prison, they would be the object of ridicule, disbelief and hostility.