Plato and the Allegory of the Cave

Allegory of the Cave

This was a philosophical allegory that Plato put forth to try explain the individual understanding of ideas and objects. He put forth a fictitious cave that has sun light projected to the inside through an opening that served as the entrance to the cave. Within the cave were prisoners who were chained such that they always faced the far end wall without being able to turn their heads backwards. A flame was lit and between the flame and the prisoners was a path that passed through the cave to the other side. This path was well raised that all the objects that passed there, animate and inanimate had their silhouettes projected on the wall of the cave in front of the prisoners. All their life, these prisoners know the objects passing behind them through the projections on the wall. Then it so happened that one prisoner was set free from the cave, he ran out and his eyes were blinded by the sun, but upon acquitting himself with the light, he started seeing people and objects in their real forms and not the cast shadows as was the case in the cave. The person was so amazed that he ran back to the cave to tell the other prisoners of the new discovery, they of course could not understand him, and indeed telling them that the shadows cast that they were seeing were not the actual objects was far beyond their comprehension since that is all they knew in life and that is what shaped their conception of the truth.

I agree with Plato that everything we see is merely an imitation and at times it is twice removed from the ideal or actual object that is, being an imitation of an imitation. Plato referred to what we see as mimesis, or the mimes of the ideal objects and that the ideal objects are always in idea which man cannot obtain. The world around us shapes our perception and what we see informs our perception and conception. For instance the prisoners in the cave knew the final and the ideal objects are what they were seeing on the wall, only to learn later that those were reflections of the objects they were not allowed to see. In the real life, for instance, a table is the conventional physical object that we see in homes each day. But the parent idea of a table is in the mind such that is you tell someone bring me a table from that house, he will be walking towards the house with the image of a table in the mind, and even if he gets into the house and finds a three legged table, he will not carry a four legged chair and bring but just the three legged table, hence the assurance that the ideal idea of a table is conceived in the mind before it is made physically, the physical table is once removed from the ideal table, and if someone has a painting of a red table, then that will be twice removed from reality.