One of the most famous notions in all of Philosophy, The Republic by Plato, “The Allegory of The Cave,” till this day still compels the sharpest of minds. In this allegory alone, he addresses copious areas of philosophy which include metaphysis, epistemology and ethics etc. His philosophies are illustrated through human nature, interactions, and education and only after achieving that does one find “enlightenment”. One should never limit themselves to all the possibilities the world has to offer simply by being scared or ignorant.
Plato’s teachings are demonstrated through people being portrayed as prisoners chained up and confined to a small space. They are forced to gawk at the shadows on the wall and because of that the shadows were all they knew. The prisoners were limited with their perception on reality because they were yet unaware that there is a whole other world outside of these walls. Plato contends that this is a prime example of a basic flaw in humans. In other words we only see what we want to.
Each of the factors stand for something different. The cave for example represents empirical evidence — which is the information received by senses, observations and documentations of behaviors and patterns through various counts of experiments. The prisoners were forced to watch shadows of occurrences on the wall over and over again. They were made to believe this is what a tree looks like. They were then able to guess what would happen next through memorization of the patterns. In a sense, the patterns display comfort. Like most of us, change is scary but no change is bad. The darkness in the cave is symbolic for the blatant ignorance in the world. The fire lastly, represents how limited they were to real knowledge.
From the previous lessons I’ve learned that knowledge and the act of knowing are two completely different things!
“The key life lesson from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is to question every assumption you have about the reality you call real”. In this quote Plato is illustrating that you will never grow if you’re comfortable in a confined space, your knowledge will never be able to expand. Also to never be so sure that the knowledge you have now is at zero fault.
