What is the Allegory of the Cave?
Plato’s "Allegory of the Cave" is a concept devised by the
philosopher to ruminate on the nature of belief versus knowledge.
The allegory states that there exist prisoners chained together in
a cave. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the
prisoners are people carrying puppets or other objects. This casts
a shadow on the other side of the wall. The prisoners watch these
shadows, believing them to be real.
Plato posits that one prisoner could become free. He finally sees
the fire and realizes the shadows are fake. This prisoner could
escape from the cave and discover there is a whole new world
outside that they were previously unaware of.
This prisoner would believe the outside world is so much more
real than that in the cave. He would try to return to free the other
prisoners. Upon his return, he is blinded because his eyes are not
accustomed to actual sunlight. The chained prisoners would see
this blindness and believe they will be harmed if they try to leave
the cave.
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The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, is an allegory presented by
the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a) to compare "the effect
of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a dialogue between
Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The allegory is
presented after the analogy of the sun (508b–509c) and the analogy of the divided
line (509d–511e).
In the allegory, Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall
of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the
wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows.
The shadows are the prisoners' reality, but are not accurate representations of the real
world. Three higher levels exist: the natural sciences; mathematics, geometry,
and deductive logic; and the theory of forms.
Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and
comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not reality at all. A
philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the
other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better
life.[1]
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- Vase or Jar
- Horse or Unicorn
- Circle or Hoop
- Bird
Vase/Jar – The purpose of vases and jars are to hold or keep certain things. If I
were to apply the concept of Plato’s allegory of the cave, it may symbolize how
some people are ‘closed’ to learning beyond what they already know. They
become intimidated of things that they have not witnessed or have not made an
effort to know about.
Unicorn – Unicorns are often tied with fantasies and things that are magical.
Unicorns are something far from reality. It is not often the case that what we
know is always the truth. And from what I have learnt, truths are not always
popular or well known by many people.
Circle – circle has always been a symbol of eternity. This represent knowledge as
the things we learn about are endless.
Bird – Birds often represents freedom. We are not free if we do not let ourselves
learn and go beyond to what we only see. We have to explore and view the real
weird in different angles. To be free, we not only discover but accept whenever
reality disproves our beliefs.
The inner world is usually our own. Our thoughts, our perceptions and beliefs. The
inner world consists of what we have known so far in our life which can go
beyond as we explore the “outside world”. The outside world, in my perspective,
is vast and infinite. As there are a lot of things that we can discover and
rediscover. It represents knowledge which is eternal.
