Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

842 Words4 Pages
Have you wondered as learners, what is the best method of gaining knowledge? Plato was an ancient Greek Philosopher during 438-347/8 BCE, who studied the theory of human perception and how we are able to retain knowledge given to us. One of his beliefs on human perception was an analogy which he created called the ‘Allegory Of The Cave’ theory and the ‘Divided Line’. This analogy is often a technique that we, in the 21st Century, use in everyday life to assist us with being able to gain knowledge given to us on a daily basis. First, to be able to understand Plato’s analogy’s and to apply it, it is best to understand the ‘Allegory Of The Cave’. Plato describes the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ through a story beginning with several human beings…show more content…
The perceived truth is the ‘visible’ portion on the ‘Divided Line’ and the tangible truth is the ‘intelligible’ portion on the ‘Divided Line’. In the ‘Allegory Of The Cave’ the shadows on the cave walls represents the ‘visible’ portion which the prisoners only knew. The ‘intelligible’ portion in the story is the point that the prisoner is taken into the sunlight to see the truth which represents the prisoners’ perspective of his freedom. Today our society is much like the visual which Plato has shared. So many people are blinded by the ‘visible’ and the only way to know if something is ‘intelligible’ is to seek more knowledge by learning and researching to find the verified truth from a reliable source. Today in society you can’t just believe the first thing you see online. For example resources and sites such as Wikipedia, can be construed as a ‘visible’ as it is an open source which people can create articles based off of their opinions and views rather than by facts. Also with sites like these, once an article is created it is open to the public viewers which allow others to have the ability to modify, add to and remove information causing it to be an unreliable source. Whereas sites like WebMD are fact based sites which only medical doctors, scientists and researchers can publish articles to making these type of sites ‘intelligible’ as it is tangible

More about Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Open Document