Plato's Allegory of the Cave

**bradybaker** · 03-05-2005 06:25 AM

How about some real philosophy for a change?

PLATO'S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

Imagine prisoners who have been chained since childhood deep inside a cave. Not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains, their heads are as well so that their eyes are fixed on a wall. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way, along which men carry shapes of various animals, plants, and other things. The shapes cast shadows on the wall, which occupy the prisoners' attention. Also, when one of the shape-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows. The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game—naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. His eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows. Similarly, if he is dragged up out of the cave into the sunlight, his eyes will be so blinded that he will not be able to see anything. At first, he will be able to see darker shapes such as shadows, and only later brighter and brighter objects. The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some sort the cause of all these things that they had seen.

**dream-scape** · 03-08-2005 12:01 AM

I would also be interested in discussing some philosophy for a change, in the philosophy forum. However, I don't feel much like discussing Platonic/Aristolean philosophy. I don't have any ideas at the moment for a good philosophic topic, but I'll think on it some.

**bradybaker** · 03-08-2005 02:28 AM

What a strange response.

**Joseph_Stalin** · 03-08-2005 03:38 AM

I...why would you respond if--you don't want to--and....*puzzled*

**Peregrinus** · 03-08-2005 05:46 AM

What part of Plato's philosophy do you want to discuss? Just posting the allegory and not posing any leading questions makes it a bit difficult to stimulate intelligent responses.

**jags** · 03-08-2005 10:38 AM

What the dudes trying to say is that we are prisoners in a world of shadows that has no substance...
Hes also suggesting that there is a free society outside of the prison house which is pervaded by love and light.
This is a generally accepted philosophy by all unbiased thinkers. However He does not mention how they became imprisoned or how they can be released or why the outside world and the prisonhouse exist in the first place if in fact they exist at all...

**bmx-life™** · 03-08-2005 11:08 AM

It is money that binds us, money drives our way of living. Society. to many aspects. An to take a qoute from Waking Life, "The awnser can be found in another question. Fear or Lazyness?"

**bradybaker** · 03-10-2005 11:19 PM

Originally posted by bmx-life™
Fear or Lazyness?

An interesting question, but a semi-loaded one. Most people would respond 'laziness' without even thinking about it. I, however, would disagree and say fear. We are all motivated by fear, laziness is a hinderance of this motivation, but not dominant by a long shot.

---------------------------------

Yeah, I suppose I could've posted some leading questions. I wanted to see if anyone would respond anyways though. Kind of a little sociological experiment. jags had that right idea.

**sensi** · 03-10-2005 11:31 PM

I'm going have to agree with bradybaker. I think fear drives a lot of people. Being lazy is just a way to avoid, avoiding being a great coping strategy.

Peace Sensi.

**Mystical_Journey** · 03-11-2005 03:14 PM

The only thing to Fear is Fear itself

**Erfeyah** · 03-13-2005 12:35 AM

Fear and lazyness. I'm thinking if we have to analyze the words a little more.
You can fear of a million things, you can fear death, you can fear life, you can fear rejecting you own ideas, fear of taking decisions, fear of taking responsibility e.t.c.

What does the phrase means?. You can be lazy and not try to work in anything, or you can be working very hard physically and not try to become educated, or being educated and think that you dont have anything ellse to learn.

So how should we take lazyness into acount?

Do you think that we can say that lazyness has to do somehting with stabillity?

**Mickeys_Elbow** · 03-16-2005 10:11 AM

I think it's just a long winded "allegory" of how the truth can hurt, and it often takes a mind some time to bend itself around a new idea.

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