Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Over time, history has produced powerful, smart, and respected leaders such as George Washington, Gandhi, and Alexander the Great. These men not only successfully lead their people, but created magnificent societies. They are considered to be some of the greatest leaders of all time. Plato however believed that there could exist a leader who was above all those men. This leader would be the Philosopher King. He would have the education to be knowledgable in both political power and philosophy and the wisdom to understand how to rule and create the ideal state. In The Republic, Plato creates the Allegory of the Cave in order to illustrate how a Philosopher King is created by moving through each stage of knowledge until they finally reach the Form of Goodness and why a Philosopher is the only person worthy to rule over society. The allegory of the cave begins with Plato illustrating to…show more content…
In the previous chapter, Plato explains the analogy of the line. This analogy shows that objects are divided into different sections. There are the images, the visible things, and the forms (222). The analogy of the line provides a structure in which to examine the allegory of the cave. The prisoner’s journey through the allegory of the cave is parallel to a journey across the line. At first, the shadows that the prisoners saw on the cave wall were only illusions and false apparitions of reality, these shadows represent the images in the analogy. When the prisoner was dragged outside, he sees for the first time tangible and tangible objects. Finally when he looks up at the sky he sees the Sun, which represents the forms specifically the Form of Goodness. At each stage of the allegory, the sights that the prisoner sees increases in excellence. At first all the prisoner sees is a false reality and by the end he gets an understanding for the entire the

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