Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

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Blinded by the Light How do we know something is real just by looking at it? Plato’s short story, “The Allegory of the Cave” describes a world much like our own. People that are prisoners to their own self perception; of which reality is truer. Trapped in a false reality, we are stuck thinking in ways that aren’t philosophical and putting too much pressure on false truths. My claim is that our society is much like the cave descripted in Plato’s story; many people in the world today are too reliant on their senses and need to break their mental prisons in order to search for a higher being; Ultimately to become-good. Plato creates a hypothetical cave, inhabited by slaves chained tightly in place since their birth. Unable to move their heads, the slave's only line of sight is forward. Behind them, at a distance, there is a blazing fire and between the fire and the prisoners there is a wall in order for objects to…show more content…
This slave acts as the philosopher of the allegory, finally able to move his head and neck around he decides to walk toward the light. To me, the light he walks to acts as enlightenment, rather than sunlight because they were in a cave, but really they were prisoners from intelligence; bound, and unable to learn. Going into the light for the slave, is equivalent to me waking up for school. Walking into the light, Plato explains how the slave would react learning the truth about reality, “ And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?”(869). Plato is saying that you cannot learn or try to teach something to someone fast. Just like the slaves eyes denied the light, the pupil will probably deny the chance at learning if hastily

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