Allegory Of The Cave Theory is a theory started by an Athenian philosopher called Plato, founder of the Platonian school of thought. In his theory, Plato states that the knowledge we perceive from our senses is mere opinion. He states real knowledge can only be gained through philosophical thinking. The theory separates those who perceive knowledge from the senses as truth and those who see the real truth. He uses five components in his theory: the cave, the shadow, the game, the escape, and the return. The five components describe the theory and are the basics to understand the deeper meaning of the theory.
In the Allegory Of The Cave Theory, the cave corresponds to human beings who believe knowledge comes from what they hear and see (Page et al. 27). This is referred to as empirical evidence. This aspect shows that those who follow empirical evidence are tied into a cave of misunderstanding. Figure out a cave where three detainees. The three captives are tied to some big stones. Their hands and legs are tied together, and their heads put in a way they can only look at what is in front of them. The detainees have been in this cave since they were born, and they have never been out of the cave.
There is a furnace behind the prisoners, and between them is a raised pathway. People outside the cave, walk along this pathway carrying objects on their heads. These objects are woods, animals and cans. As a prisoner, you can only see the shadows reflected by the sun on the wall.
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The shadows stand for those who believe that empirical evidence to provide knowledge. You are seeing the shadow of the truth if you believe what you see is the truth. Plato offensively refers to you as a “pleb” an offending word to non-philosophers (Merleau-Ponty 47). As one of the prisoners, you cannot see what is by your side, and behind you, you can only see the wall in front of you. As people walk on the pathway, you can only see the shadows of the things they are carrying reflected on the wall. As a prisoner, you will believe that these are the real objects as you have never seen the real ones. Basically, this is what Plato perceives as sensory gained knowledge, which is a mere opinion.
The game corresponds to the manner in which people believe that one person can be a maestro when they have knowledge of the empirical world. According to Plato, the maestro does not know anything, and it is laughable to like them. Plato implies that the detainees would start a ‘game’ of predicting the next shadow cast on the wall (Halloran 67). As one of the prisoners, if you would correctly predict the next shadow, your fellow detainees would recognize you as a genius and that you are a maestro of nature. The maestro becomes superior and is revered by his fellow detainees. The prisoners easily believe what the maestro says, and the journey of being mislead starts.
As time progresses, Plato suggest that one of the prisoners would manage to escape from the cave. He is surprised by the world he sees outside the cave, he cannot believe that it could be real. As the prisoner familiarizes themself with the new world, he gets to understand that his former perception if the reality was absolutely wrong.
The prisoner starts an intellectual journey as he starts to comprehend his new environment. He discovers that the sun is the source of life. He discovers refinement and insight. He reviews his earlier life and the predicting game they played and realizes it was worthless. Plato views the free detainee as a philosopher who finds knowledge outside of the cave and senses. The sun corresponds to philosophical truth or knowledge. The journey to understand his new world is viewed as a philosopher’s journey when seeking truth and knowledge.
The detainee returns to the cave, and there he informs his fellow prisoners of his results from the escape. He unfolds to them the reality he found in the new world (Sommers 37). He tells them that the shadows are not the real things. The detainees cannot believe him; in fact, they intimidate him and swear they would kill him if he untied them. The reaction of the detainees corresponds to the behavior of people who fear philosophical truths and do not trust philosophers.
Plato’s theory is manifested in the modern world in all aspects.
Believers of empirical knowledge are chained in caves. Political leaders are shadows that make people believe in what is not the truth through propaganda. The prisoner in modern society is the person who stands for the truth. The prisoner critically looks at what needs to be done. When the prisoner gives his well-thought opinion, he is considered to be opposing the political leaders. The political leaders react, sometimes assassinations happen. The freethinker is killed. That’s how Plato’s Allegory Of The Cave Theory applies in modern society.
Works Cited
- Halloran, Thomas F. “National Allegory and Partition in The Shadow Lines.” Amitav Ghosh: Critical Essays (2016): 45-55.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and Rajiv Kaushik. “Excerpt. Proust. A Theory,–and a Concordant Practice,–of Language.” Chiasmi International 21 (2019): 45-51.
- Page, Timothy J., et al. “Allegory of a cave crustacean: systematic and biogeographic reality of Halosbaena (Peracarida: Thermosbaenacea) sought with molecular data at multiple scales.” Marine Biodiversity 48.2 (2018): 1185-1202.
- Sommers, Claire. “School of Shadows: The Return to Plato’s Cave.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 25.3 (2018): 131-146.
