Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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The Dividing Line of Plato's Allegory of the Cave Allegory of the Cave by Plato, which can be found in Book VII of The Republic, is among the most well known parables that he has written. This particular allegory calls attention to a vast amount of philosophical concepts that Plato founded throughout the development of The Republic, the most evident of them being the dividing line. The dividing line can best be described as the space amid the world of perceptions in which we exist and the world of the forms that exists in the firmaments. The Allegory of the Cave aids the public in comprehending the idea from which philosophy is grounded. This is also the Book in the Republic in which the instruction of the guardians is defined. The reader…show more content…
He considers himself lucky to have this knowledge and pities the others because this world is unknown to them. He decides to return to the cave to share his new found knowledge with those of who are still imprisoned. However, the decent back into the cave proves to be as difficult as the ascent into the sunlight. As he re-enters the cave his eyes are filled with darkness once again blinding him from being able to see what is around him. The adjustment from the light from to the dark will be a longer process; his vision in the dark will be unclear. As the now freed prisoner tries to tell the prisoners about the things that he has seen outside of the cave he is tormented with ridicule. The prisoners believe that the things that he states to have seen must be imaginary; that he has returned to the cave with less knowledge then when had left. They resent the freed individual for bringing these “false” tales to their society in attempt to change their perspective, and deem the journey upwards as nothing more than a waste of time. As a result to this attitude, which has been developed to the ascent of the cave, if anyone attempted to free them from the world that they know they would to kill that person. The stubbornness which the freed prisoner displayed is multiplied because it is now not the fear of the unknown which scares the prisoners,…show more content…
Philosophy is by Oxford definition “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.” In order to fully understand philosophy an individual must first understand the form of the good. Plato discusses this point in Book VI of The Republic with the statement, “And I suspect the latter, for you’ve often heard it said that the form of the good is the most important thing to learn about and it’s by their relation to it that just things and the others become useful and beneficial.” (Plato) However, the journey towards understanding the forms is not an easy one as it begins in the world of ideas. There is a dividing line which represents where the world of ideas end and the world of the forms begin. Plato states that this line divides the visual world we live in, the world of the shadows, and the intelligible world, the world of the forms. “Understand, then, that as we said, there are two things, one sovereign of the intelligible king and place, the other the visible.” (Plato) In the visible world the “good” is exemplified by the Sun. Without the sun shedding light to the objects around us, we would not be able to fully understand them; much like how the form of the good is needed to understand any other form. “What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm,

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