Cave Allegory In Plato's The Republic

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The Republic is a philosophical work written by the Greek philosopher Plato. The goal of it is to build toward defining justice and the implications associated with it. It is suggested that the best ruler will be one who has an understanding of what Plato calls the good. Plato elaborates on this with his theory of reality and theory of knowledge through the use of the sun analogy, the divided line, and the cave allegory. The sun analogy is brought up within the text when the character Socrates is asked to define goodness. Socrates makes the decision to explain it through an analogy. He says that the sun provides light which in effect allows the eye to see visible things. In this analogy the sun represents the form of the good, the eye is the…show more content…
He explains it in terms of a line that is to be divided into four parts, the bottom two are part of the visible realm and the top two belong to the intelligible realm. The lowest two consist of images of shadows and reflections and is accessed through imagination in accordance to the theory of knowledge which intertwines with the theory of reality. One step up in the visible realm are particular material things like animals and trees and are accessed through belief. Both belief and imagination are subcategories of what makes up opinion in the theory of knowledge. The following step up in the line leads to the intelligible realm, the first being the hypotheses such as well accepted geometric principles and is accessed through thought. The final step up on the line is the forms such as beauty which are absolute and cannot be subject to differing perceptions; forms are accessed through understanding and is a subcategory of knowledge along with thought. Successful education would involve moving up through the parts of the line until one reaches the highest form; the form of the…show more content…
It takes place in an underground cave-like dwelling with an entrance a long way up. There have been human beings living there all of their lives, some of which are completely locked up against a wall so that they can only look straight ahead at the cave wall. There is a fire positioned on elevated ground behind them. Behind the prisoner wall are people seemingly taking the role of puppeteers and project images of various objects they hold up in front of the fire in order to cast a shadow onto the cave wall for the prisoners to see. All the prisoners will ever see are the shadows being projected. As a result, they will believe that the truth is solely the shadows they see. However, if a prisoner was to be suddenly unchained and turned around toward the light facing the entrance, he would be disoriented as his eyes are temporarily blinded. Once his eyes begin to adjust, he sees the objects within the cave and not the shadows, he would be moving up from imagination to belief in the theory of knowledge. And if he was to be forcefully dragged outside the cave, his eyes would gradually adjust so he can start seeing and studying things in the real world such as the water and sky. He has moved up to the level of thought through his observational studies. Lastly, when he eventually learns from his studies that the sun governs everything in the visible world and is the
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