Allegory Of The Cave Essays (Examples)

Allegory of the Cave: Plato: Truth and Art
Allegory of the cave is one of the most interesting, enlightening and insightful example given by Plato in his book The epublic to explain such vague concepts as knowledge and truth. It appears in form of dialogues between Socrates and Glaucon and they touch upon various important concepts in connection with learning and discovery. Two very vital subjects discussed are art and truth. When we closely study the allegory, we realize that for Socrates and Plato, art was something powerful and thus dangerous. In this allegory, art has been presented in a negative light because Plato saw what people could do with art. He saw it in the form of drawing on the wall in the dark cave and realized that while art offered a means of communication, it could suppress man's ability to think clearly and may even fail to illuminate…

Allegory of the Cave
The beginning of Plato's book VII of the "The Republic" (514a -- 520a) is a written dialogue between Glaucon, Plato's brother, and his mentor, Socrates - The Allegory of the Cave. Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave' presents a world whereby prisoners lived chained to the wall of the cave. The people carrying puppets or objects, the puppeteers, create shadows of the objects on the wall, and for the prisoners, these shadows are real. The shadows create reality for them. Plato then supposes that if one prisoner was set free and departed from the cave, he will find it difficult to see because of the sun and will be anxious about what he sees around him. The prisoner's version of reality had always been the shadows on the wall. According to Aquileana (2016), after acquainting himself to his new world, he subsequently recognizes that his entire presence…

Allegory of the cave can be summed up in one single sentence. It symbolizes the place of perceptions in the pursuit of knowledge. Indeed, in a preamble to the actual relating of the allegory, Plato is involved in a discussion as to who can be considered a true philosophy. The discussion meanders around attempting to answer the following enigmas: Just because someone subscribes to a specific philosophy, does that make him or her a philosopher? Does a person who indulges in a certain muse that is premised on a philosophy -- directly or indirectly related to it -- become a philosopher? Plato goes through pains explaining that a philosopher was (or should be) cut in a different mould. A philosopher, Plato avers, should be able to see beyond what is merely obvious or superficial. A philosopher should see the inner beauty of things and understand, abstractedly, the natural causes of…

The discrepancy between the ideal and the real and the difficulty of arriving at the truth through deduction and induction is something that everyone must grapple with who deals with the ethics of a profession, like accounting. "Prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with shadows of books. But they would be mistaken if they thought that the word 'book' refers to something that any of them has ever seen" (Cohen 2006). The ideal of how a corporation should behave and keep its books will invariably fall short of the reality, as the sloppiness of every day life, the new challenges posed by a dynamic business environment, and deliberate and accidental misinterpretations of the rules cause a deviation from the ideal, abstract forms that the reality is supposed to correspond to, Platonically.

There is a critical distinction between an accountant and a philosopher like Socrates, though. On…

However, once the enchained individual is set free, we could assume that realizing his own potential could make him wiser than the person who originally helped him.
Another interesting idea that Plato introduces through the allegory of the cave states that all of us can become "superior" through a process of training which evolves a lot of effort and dedication. I agree to the fact that all people can overcome their own condition if they will it and they submit themselves to a process of hard work oriented in this direction. However, I believe that not all people are endowed with the same capacities and talents. Therefore, regardless the hardship of the training process or its efficiency in terms of progress, it is impossible to have a world of all "superior" people at the end.

On the one hand, there is always room for more, regardless of the high state…

Moreover, Bacon suggests that such false foundations, if passed in time, can only ruin the world.
"The Four Idols" of Francis Bacon summarizes an observation of how humans form information in their minds; same subject discussed by Plato in his "The Allegory of the Cave." According to Bacon, there are things in wherein the truth is hard to bare, thus the human mind resorts to information that are available to him; sometimes just assuming that the available information are the facts and reality. Bacon suggests that

"The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.

The philosophies of Francis Bacon were actually inspired and patterned from the thoughts and idealisms of Plato. Thus, "The Four Idols" can be found as an extension of Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave." Both suggest that the human mind…

S. is on its way to chaos, anarchy and a national catastrophe. The pursuit of individual freedom without respect for authority will eventually lead to these consequences. What keeps U.S. strong and independent is that free enterprise and not the illusion of a contemporary democracy. A basic difficulty in American democracy is its attempt to mitigate all the aspects of negative human nature. Criminals are given equal rights as honorable individuals. Dysfunctional citizens are given thorough protection by the Constitution and allowed to practice their negative behavior in the same environment as honorable and conscientious citizens, shielded equally by laws and served by greedy lawyers and the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. These 10 amendments undermine the teachings of the Ten Commandments and thus destabilize the foundations of the Republic. The prevailing hypocrisy of democracy has been weakening the republic and will eventually lead to the decline and fall…

Plato's Cave Allegory
Plato's writing in the cave allegory deals extensively with moral values, materialism, ethical behavior and spirituality. The plot and basic concepts (discussed below) lend an incredible helping hand to understanding our place in this world given these frameworks.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave (Republic, book 7) recounts slaves chained from their very birth to their work areas deep in a cave. They are chained in a manner that precludes them from gazing left or right but only at that which is on the wall of the cave immediately in front of them. On this wall in front of them are the visible shadows of the people traipsing behind them, carrying food, water, or raw materials of all kinds. Beyond these individuals burns a constant fire that gives both heat and light to the desperate and chained inhabitants. These chained slaves create a game to ameliorate their boredom.…

Allegory of the Cave, the evaluation by Plato and Socrates of politics and ethics are very relevant to the policies of the ush Administration. An immoral war, tax breaks for the wealthy and a hard stance on the punishment of criminals rather than the prevention of crime are all examples of ush's policies that make Plato and Socrates seem as though they are analyzing actual current events.
The ush-supported war is morally wrong. His reasoning for entering the war was based on ignorance, which supports Plato's theory that anyone who behaves immorally does it because they are ignorant. Weapons of mass destruction, the original justification for invading Iraq, were never found. Economically, the war has driven up debt, signaling a need for higher interest rates and a cut in social programs to help the poor. Surely, a more scholarly approach to Iraq would have meant a different course of action…

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…

Plato's Allegory Of Cave
Less than a hundred years ago, women in the United States and in many other parts of the world were not permitted to participate in politics: they were deemed inferior to men by nature of their gender. In spite of rampant sexism in modern society, the thought of women being unable to vote seems preposterous. The shift in consciousness that took place with the nineteenth amendment to the American Constitution reflects a similar consciousness breakthrough as Plato describes in his Republic. In The Republic, which was penned millennia ago, Plato presents a perennially popular metaphor: the general public is living as if in a cave, without access to direct sunlight and without contact with the outside world. The sunlight nevertheless creates shadows on the cave walls, shadows that the people mistake for reality. When one person ventures outside the cave, he or she realizes that the…

After all, Socrates tells Glaucon that if the prisoner who sees the sunlight were to venture back in the cave and break the news that the shadows on the wall were illusions, he would be killed. However, it is possible to enjoy the pleasures of the body without causing harm to the self or to others. The key is to acknowledge truth and wisdom.
Morgareidge suggests that collectivism can help with the mutual liberation that should ideally take place inside the cave. The prisoners can help each other to see the truth, represented by the sun in Plato's allegory, and then inspire each other to act ethically. "The walls of the cave and dungeons, whose solid appearance we now discover to have been produced by our own alienated labor, crumble, allowing us to perceive the light -- beauty and the good -- in a world of objects and activities designed…

Plato's Allegory Of The Cave
If he were simply presenting the idea that humanity is often blind to the fullness and vast resources of the world and what it offers, using the cave as a metaphor would have been enough for Plato to make his point. If the only point was that individuals -- because they are so wrapped up in their own shallow lives, petty distractions, and so loyal to their sensory experiences -- can't (and don't) see the big picture of life and an of humanity's relationship to the universe, placing people in a dark cave would have been sufficient for Plato to convey his message. But by placing those allegorical individuals in chains -- and locking their heads in place to reduce what they see to shadows on a cave wall -- takes Plato's allegorical message quite a bit deeper.

Clearly the philosopher wanted to make the…

Plato's Allegory Of The Cave And The Movie The Matrix
Plato's allegory of the Cave and the 1999 Matrix movie share many similarities and look at a similar question of what is real and who has the responsibility to point towards the truth. It is obvious that the creators of the Matrix have inspired quite significantly from Plato's work and putting in a modern contexts, aiming for a different result.

In Plato, the dialogues he presents offer the image of a strange dual-world, in which men are tied together facing a wall, from birth, with only shadows of people and objects projected in front of them. When one of them is released by force, he is taken away from the cave he was born into and shown a different world from the one he knew. Besides this, he understands that the reality he has lived so far is a faked…

Most importantly, Plato describes the fundamental difference between the prisoner who is released and his former companions who are still chained together and unable to see the world directly.
"And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death."

Plato maintained that the…

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" has as its central image prisoners in a cave, who are chained to a wall and unable to turn their heads. While it is Plato's intention to use these prisoners as a metaphor for persons untutored in the Theory of Forms, they can also be used to apply to students coming to college. College students are the current version of Plato's untutored persons. The fire behind the chained figures can then be seen as the illuminating light of knowledge. This light, when seen only partially, is however likely to induce illusion rather than true knowledge. Thus puppeteers behind the prisoners create illusions with the combined effect of puppets and the fire. This can be seen as representing the limited knowledge gained in life before entering the illuminating environment of college. The shadows and echoes cast by the real objects are taken as real by the…

histoyguide.og/intellect/Allegoy.html 2. And Plato, King, Jeffeson
Thee appeas to be two unifying factos between Matin Luthe King J.'s "Lette Fom A Bimingham Jail," Thomas Jeffeson's Declaation of Independence, and Plato's Allegoy of the Cave, which is excepted fom book seven of his seminal wok entitled The Republic. The fist of these is that each autho is expessly witing fo a political eason o as a justification fo a political stance, including King J. (who many may contend was addessing civil ights, which was cetainly a heated political issue of his day). The second is that each of the afoementioned authos also justifies a good deal of the hetoic pofessed within these bodies of wok by the assetion of the authoity of God o of a divine powe.

When the pudent schola pauses to conside these commonalities between these texts, the agumentative styles invoked do not appea to be all that…

Republic, Plato's allegory of the cave is included as a way of describing the path from ignorance to enlightenment. Plato describes a group of people chained inside a cave, who cannot see anything except for the shadows cast on the wall in front of them by other figures. This represents humanity prior to the development of philosophy, because viewing these shadows dancing on a wall is closest people had previously gotten to real knowledge, which is represented in the allegory as the sun itself, rather than the paltry light offered by the fire.
For Plato, Forms are the essential, real things which human beings may only experience through thought or imperfect representations in physical objects. Because Forms are abstract, universal notions, they reveal the reason behind the similarities and differences among objects, because these objects are merely imperfect representations of a perfect, universalized Form, which is definable only by the…

King and Plato
Both Martin Luther King Junior's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," and Plato's allegory of the cave discuss how to find truth and how to teach others. King's letter suggests that all people can learn. He says as long as people are willing to listen, learning can free all people unlike Plato's allegory of the cave that suggests learning possible is for only a few people in society. Both authors suggested that what people considered 'reality' was wrong. King stated that the idea that the civil rights movement should hold back was incorrect. King did not take into consideration most of American history from the past. King wrote his letter in hope of changing the minds of the Birmingham ministers who criticized him, and to change the mind of his fellow Americans. Plato's allegory of the cave suggests that all human beings are born under a delusion that…

Plato's Examined Life
According to Plato, while we ought to value living good lives, an examined life is the only life worth living. Plato expands upon Socrates' ideas of an examined life in many of his works. Such a life requires daily introspection and reflection on the life, especially on the nature of virtue. Socrates' goal is to install reason as the judge of one's drives. The lack of self-knowledge is, in the philosopher's opinion, a major killer of the examine life.

Plato's character, Euthyphro, is one who lacks self-knowledge. In Plato's story, Euthyphro files murder charges against his own father. When defending his actions, Euthyphro tells his side of the story to the philosopher Socrates.

He says that one of his dependent workers got drunk one night and killed a domestic servant of the family. When Euthyphro's father heard what had happened, he punished the worker severely by bounding…

Plato Cave
The Sociological Implications of Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Social enlightenment is an abstract concept indeed, and one that is tied closely to collective ways of understanding and perceiving complex cultural dimensions such are hierarchies, forms of governance and variances of individual economic burden. However, our understanding of this abstract concept may be enhanced by Plato's well-known "Allegory of the Cave." Comprising Chapter VII of Plato's critically important The Republic, the allegory examines the experience of socially-imposed ignorance and the consequences of enlightenment. In doing so, it offers an extremely compelling discussion on the human condition that is remarkable in its relevance to our lives today. Namely, the allegory forces us to examine our conceptions of awareness and to reflect on that which we truly know as opposed to that which we believe we know. Indeed, the most compelling aspect of the Plato allegory is the degree to…

In essence this means that humanity lives in a state of illusion that has been technologically constructed by an intelligence that provides people with an illusionary reality. In the film it appears that humanity is being kept in a state of illusion in order to be used as an energy source.
We can relate the scenario in the Matrix to the cave allegory in that the entire world has become trapped in a highly technologized ' cave' where mankind exists in a false and dreamlike state, completely unaware of the actual reality of their imprisonment.

However, there are a few people who are aware of the "shadows" that exist outside the cave. There are a number of human beings who have become aware of the "forms" or the true and horrific reality of their world and the true nature of human existence. Under the leadership of the mysterious Morpheus, they…

Existentialism takes the human subject -- the holistic human, and the internal conditions as the basis and start of the conceptual way of explaining life. Taking idealism From Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, then building upon it, existentialist thinkers strip away the external and look at questions that surround human existence, and the conditions of that existence, rather than hypothesizing or dreaming of different forms of being. Thus, the inward philosophical emotions, angst, dread, self-doubt, self-esteem, etc. are experiences of the historical process, and the process of learning and moving through "existence" into a less fragile, more concrete, way of self-actualization. The existentialist concept of freedom is the manner in which internal values are set and interact with external historical trends. ather than humans being primarily rational, they make decisions when and if they find meaning (Solomon)
Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based solely on the meaning to them…

Just as their problems are caused by humans, their problems can also be solved by humans. This fact is exemplified by the existence of politics, where people learn to befriend and utilize people who would otherwise do them harm. Skill at politics, as Shorris noted, is what distinguished the rich from the poor: "Rich people know…how to negotiate instead of using force. They know how to use politics to get along, to get power. (5).

The Return to the Cave

In the third section of the allegory, Socrates speculates on what would happen if this former prisoner were to return to the cave. Having seen the light, he will have been happy for his edification and piteous of those stuck in the cave, believing their lives dark and ignorant. If he were to return to the cave, he would not be as content as he was when he was previously…

Plato's The Cave
The chief theme addressed in the "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato is that: mankind often fails to comprehend the world's actual reality, believing they grasp whatever they come across, see and feel around them. In truth, humanity simply recognizes shadows of different entities' actual forms.

Plato's work depicts captives shackled such that all they are able to view is the cave's rear wall, upon which dance shadows cast by things moved between the light from a huge fire behind their backs and the cave wall. "How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?" As their vision is limited to the cave wall, they are unaware of the fact that what they see are only shadows. They believe their eyes perceive actual things. For instance, if a man's shadow were to dance upon the wall, they would feel…

Plato's Cave Allegory
The allegorical account presented by Plato in the form of "The Cave" is very informative and educating if assessed and looked at from the proper perspective. The author of this report is to look at the movements and reactions of the mobile person in the cave. Plato is obviously making a point about life and how best to experience and learn from it. The author of this report shall give a quick summary of the movements of the man and what occurs around him and what changes greatly when his gaze is removed from the wall. While opinions and interpretations of this allegory may vary, the overall message Plato was trying to communicate is pretty clear.

Before getting into the analysis of what precisely Plato was trying to say through the cave allegory, it should be first be summarized what precisely happened and was explained so that…

epic book "The epublic" by Plato. Specifically it will discuss the "Allegory of the Cave" contained in the book and relate it to the background logic you brought to this class and establish whether or not this class has affected your background logic. If so how, and if not, why not? The allegory of the cave may be Plato's most famous allegory from his work "The epublic" and it is still a viable source of logic in today's world. However, I do not agree with all of Plato's logic, and my logic has not changed since taking this class -- in fact, the class has simply helped cement my own background logic in my mind even further.
After reading "The Allegory of the Cave" and attempting to understand Plato's logic and philosophy, I feel my background logic seems intact. Before I enrolled in this class, my logic was basically "If…

" He also confirmed to himself that God was the origin of his thought, and therefore because his thoughts were real, God must also be real.
3. Descartes -- Senses and Knowledge

When we went outside as a class, part of Descartes ideas was visible in our observations. All the students had a different perception of the external world. Some focused on certain people and certain objects, which were not seen in the same exact way as another student. This shows that the human mind sees a unique version of what our senses tell us is reality. Reality, might however, escape the limitations of the human mind. For instance, a particular relation to a person and an object, this case a tree, might be seen as being a certain way in my mind but a much different way in another student's mind. Each person's unique experience, through the perception of…

Plato and the Little Prince
Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the Little Prince of Antoine de Saint Exuprey

Plato's Allegory of the Cave in Book Seven of The Republic portrays a world in darkness, the darkness of a cavern. Individuals in the darkness of the cavern of the lived texture of reality, of a daily existence of neckties and golf as Antoine de Saint Exuprey might say, sit around a burning fire. This image represents human beings the world. The fire the human beings gaze at is the fire of the enlightenment the philosophers of humanity, are seeking, often in vain. Occasionally, the humans at the fire catch glimpses of a higher form of reality upon the walls of the cave in the form of shadows. The shadows, which represent how most human beings see reality, are really only dimly filtered versions of the true nature of the forms,…

Absolute Truth in the Philosophical orks of Plato and Friedrich Nietzsche
The development of human civilization is a social movement that gave way for humans to further explore everything about the world they live in. Philosophers, in their pursuit for knowledge about humans and human understanding, had written discourses about the nature of human knowledge, and how humanity had come to possess this quality. More specifically, philosophers attempted to explain human understanding and knowledge through the concept of 'absolute truth,' which serves as the catalyst for knowledge to develop within an individual. Plato and Friedrich Nietzsche are two famous philosophers who have written philosophical discourses discussing the concept of Absolute Truth as the primary factor that influences and develops human knowledge. Influenced by their social experiences during the period and society they had lived in (Plato during the 5th century and Nietzsche, 19th century), both philosophers subsists to different interpretations…

But even many devout believers in America today state that we all worship the same God, and thus participate in the same 'truth' regardless of our affiliation. Even atheists validate the feeling of believers and state that although science is factually true, the human mind and faith has its own truth that can emotionally and psychologically move mountains. In other words, there are different kinds of truths -- truths that can be proven with a scientific experiment and emotional truths that are subjective in nature (like true love and true friendship).
Of course, some philosophers suggested that different types of truths have more solid truth claims than others, even in the past. But few people have radically questioned the ability to know the truth on every level as much as we do today. In fact, maybe the word 'truth' is not a good word for what we are seeking, when…

Society
We all live within societies and we are the consistency of the society. As families and as individuals, we play roles and responsibilities that when combined point towards a given trend and charters of a larger group, hence the society.

An ideal society is one that constitutes people with similar life patterns which are mutual and beneficial to each member of that particular group. The infiltration of people with divergent interests interferes with the consistency of that society hence should be deterred by whatever means possible.

The Oxford Dictionary (2012), refers to a society as "The aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community." The society is also defined "The community of people living in a particular region and having shared customs, laws, and organizations."

More often than not, the term society is confused with family, it is worth noting that the family is just…

Similarly, Zarathustra's time in the mountains offered him wisdom, knowledge that he needed to share with others; thus he resolved to "go under" (Nietzsche 10), and share the truth with the unenlightened 'herd.' Much of society is founded on this central tenet of education being a central good, and indeed everyday interaction seems to be predicated on the assumption that ignorance is potentially harmful. For example, many alcoholics are ignorant of their condition, and this ignorance causes physical and emotional harm. It would seem as though friends who know someone with alcoholism (and who, furthermore, know some truth that the alcoholic does not, namely, that alcoholism is harmful) have a moral obligation to try and educate that person in an effort to curb his or her drinking. To not do so would be to betray one's social role as a friend, and ignore one's moral responsibility implied by that role.…

Thus, studying psychology is morally and intellectually improving. Psychology is so all encompassing as a field of study that it makes a person's mind more flexible. In psychology classes, a student must learn about analysis from a qualitative, even literary approach, as encompassed in the words of Sigmund Freud and William James. In other psychology classes, a student must understand how to interpret an Excel spreadsheet used in a research study to prove the efficacy of a particular antidepressant drug. Or, he or she must understand a more scientific and neurological approach to the human brain than more humanistic approaches to psychology might suggest in other classes. All of these different approaches are integral to modern psychology. A psychology major must be fluent in the liberal arts, the social sciences, and the natural sciences, and so he or she will be able to apply many approaches to solving problems in…

This may be true, but only to a limited extent. If human experience is limited, then so is the acquired knowledge and truth can not exist partially only. On the one hand. On the other hand, it is safe to say that unlimited experience is impossible at least empirically (419a).
Therefore, truth might be based on experience but experience is not enough. The fact that people are chained to the wall is a metaphor which suggests the fact that human perceptions are influenced and shaped by the environment we live in through its customs, beliefs and values. It becomes obvious how difficult it is to have a free mind. Returning to the issue of experience, we may have a person breaking free from the chain and thus being able to move around the cave.

Now he can see the statues and the fire and with the use of reason he…

Plato & Aristotle
The author of this brief report has been asked to compare and contrast the theories of knowledge, otherwise known as epistemology, that are present in the works of Plato and Aristotle. The works of Plato that will be covered include Divided Line, the Allegory of the Cave and the Sun. When it comes to Aristotle, the items that will be covered include the ten categories and the significance of substance. The relevant text in question will be Classics of Philosophy as authored by Pojman and Vaughn. While there are some strong similarities between the works and authors cited above, there are also some distinct differences between them.

When it comes to the Divided Line, Plato is writing out a dialog that occurs between Glaucon and Socrates. It is important to note that this work immediately follows the Analogy of the Sun and the Analogy of the Cave…

Somebody establishes them according to an already existing set of values. What happens when these values are not shared by everyone? Can people actually agree upon an universal concept of beauty based solely on reason? These are some of the issues which the philosopher tries to analyze.
3. An important metaphor that Socrates uses in order to convey his ideas regarding the concept of good is the one of the sun. The action of illumination which the sun performs is not only physical but spiritual as well. Since the sun is the very source of knowldge and the instrument which guides people towards the truth, the sun becomes a metaphor for the "good" as well. Therefore there is a close connection between knowledge and ethics, the main link being the truth. The sun (through its generating the light) is the main tool that the eye uses in order to perceive…

But this sense of a death of nationalism, or one's personal belief is different than Nietzsche's statement because no ideology has kind of hold Christianity did upon the world when Nietzsche wrote in 19th century Europe.
Response 2

Do you think we reached a point where we no longer need God?

On one hand, it is possible to see humanity's ability to engage in scientific discovery as proof of the glory of rationality as opposed to following the 'herd' of faith. But science can also confirm that human beings are not very important in the grand scheme of things, unlike most religions which are concerned with human choice and fate. Darwin's discovery that humans are descendents of primates, Mendel's realization that a great deal of our behavior is determined by our genes, even the discovery that the universe does not revolve around the earth shows us that much of our…

aking Life and Plato's Republic
Richard Linklater's 2001 film aking Life explores the nature of reality and its relationship to dreaming, and in particular the way in which the worlds of dreaming and reality intersect and cloud each other. At one point, as the main character essentially walks through his dreams, interacting with a variety of characters engaged in philosophical discussion, he comes upon a man playing ukulele who espouses and interpretation of dreaming very similar to Plato's allegory of the cave in his Republic. The ukulele-playing man describes the notion of lucid dreaming as a means of truly "living," and his description of lucid dreaming can be interpreted as the enactment of the goal in Plato's allegory. By comparing the scene with the ukulele-playing man in aking Life with Plato's allegory of the cave in The Republic, it will be possible to see how the former reinterprets the latter…

His view is Asian in that it mirrors the view that meaning is found by searching within, that imposing a specific doctrine is not the way to find enlightenment, and that a teacher is a guide rather than a figure of authority. Such ideas are expressed in Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and other Asian philosophical and religious systems. Socrates takes a very self-effacing position in keeping with the way he subordinates himself to the need of society and so does not challenge the death sentence pronounced against him, nor does he escape when he can because he believes more in the right of the social order to exert its authority over him than he does in his personal welfare. The sublimation of the personal in service of the greater good is also an Asian element that Socrates expresses in his own way, and the way his followers argue with him…

Plato's Theory Of The Tripartite Soul
The Republic is an influential dialogue by Plato, written in the first half of the 4th century C. This Socratic dialogue mainly concerns political philosophy and ethics. The political ideas are clarified by picturing a utopia. The Republic also contains the famous allegory of the cave, with which Plato clarifies his theory of ideal forms. The Republic, which is the standard English translation of the title, is somewhat of a misnomer, as the government theorized by Plato resembles an authoritarian aristocracy. Nonetheless, the work is generally recognized a foundational text in political philosophy. The scene of the dialogue is the house of Cephalus at Piraeus, a city beyond the walls of ancient Athens. It was the port of entry and exit for trade into Athens. Socrates was not known to venture outside of Athens regularly. Socrates narrates the whole dialogue the day after it…

Collapsing Certainties
Theme of Collapsing Uncertainties

The Collapsing Birth Rate in the Developed orld

Human beings perceive events, individuals, and objects in different manners in relation to the circumstances and understanding. This is vital towards the development of concept of reality with the aim of continuous leadership, caring, and forms of goodness. This is an indication that human beings believe in whatever they see and purport to be ideal thus generation of meaning and form of understanding or knowledge for the purposes of guidance and leadership. Various personalities have focused on the examination of the concept of collapsing uncertainties. Some of these personalities include Timothy Eves, Plato, and Sartre. Sartre focuses on the examination of the concept of hell or the world of darkness through integration of the No Exit play. This is ideal for effective understanding and development of the forms of goodness in relation to reality and knowledge.…

This responsibility -- using knowledge to actualize others, is a predominant theme in much of Plato's works that resonates directly with contemporary pedagogical theory.
The Allegory itself is written as a fictional dialog between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon. In the allegory of the cave, the reader, whom Plato assumes is also a philosopher on a path towards enlightenment, is treated to a play within a play. There is a dark cave, cavernous and damp. Individuals (prisoners) have been chained in this chasm since birth so that they are able to move in a way that they can only look at the wall in front of them; otherwise they are immobile. "Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads" (vii: 515). There is…

Plato & Aristotle
The Platonic theory of knowledge is divided into two parts: a quest first to discover whether there are any unchanging objects and to identify and describe them and second to illustrate how they could be known by the use of reason, that is, via the dialectical method. Plato used various literary devices for illustrating his theory; the most famous of these is the allegory of the cave in ook VII of The Republic. The allegory depicts ordinary people as living locked in a cave, which represents the world of sense-experience; in the cave people see only unreal objects, shadows, or images. ut through a painful process, which involves the rejection and overcoming of the familiar sensible world, they begin an ascent out of the cave into reality; this process is the analogue of the application of the dialectical method, which allows one to apprehend unchanging objects and…

Plato using Socrates as his guide to help illuminate how his view of order and rulership should be defined. Plato's The epublic will be used to demonstrate how the orders of government should be carried out and how society itself is responsible for producing philosopher kings that provide the best rulers for their country.
Plato was a Greek philosopher that used his past experiences as a playwright to help develop the necessary emotional content within his writing to illicit substantial responses. Plato's mentor, Socrates, never recorded any of his ideas, and the use of his character by Plato in most of his works suggest that his elder supplied much of the inspiration and motivation for his own ideas. The notion that Plato's views have fundamentally shifted the means of thinking and metaphysics throughout the worlds modern history is very popular and supported in many academic and philosophical circles and his…

Too many leaders today do not see much as necessarily bad or good, and they simply go through their life without realizing there is so much more out there to be done and seen, just like the people in Plato's Cave. They have blinders on -- some of which are part of society, and some of which are self-inflicted. If only they would break out of the chains which enslave them in that Cave they could climb up into the light where they could truly see, and they would be aware of all the beauty and wonder in this world.

Unfortunately, the people in the Cave choose not to make an attempt at going outside, and because they do not strive to see more and to learn more, they do not teach the children to see more and to learn more. The cycle simply perpetuates, and this is the case…

All the aspects of society are based on the models of the Forms, or the ideals of perfection. In other words, if we translate this belief into practical terms, Plato's theory really means that we should strive for the highest possible ideals in life.

Although Plato had a great influence on estern thought, there are many thinkers and philosophers who disagree with the basic premises, and dualism, of this theory. For example, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant states that man has certain limitations in his search for truth and knowledge. Unlike Plato, Kant believed that we could not have knowledge of or 'know' the truth that exists behind ordinary reality. He referred to the word of true reality as the noumenal world. However to understand this noumenal world is to understand the "thing in itself'; a possibly that Kant believed was beyond human capabilities. Therefore, although Kant acknowledged that there was…

Suffering
Tim Murphy

Theology

MA2000D

The existence of human suffering poses a unique theological problem. If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, then why does suffering exist? Indeed, this difficulty is confronted in scripture itself: perhaps the most important look into the problem of suffering comes in the Old Testament story of Job. Mainstream Christianity continues to have a variety of ways of approaching this theological question, although historically Christians had a much broader spectrum of responses. For example, today's mainstream Christianity is a result of the establishment of orthodoxy in the face of Gnostic Christians, who used the existence of suffering as a way of questioning whether God was indeed omnipotent or all-loving. Gnosticism instead posits a "demiurge" or "alien god" that created this world and its suffering without being omnipotent or good. ut the oldest mainstream form of Christian orthodoxy today -- represented by the Roman Catholic faith…

movies influence us? Do they have the power to alter our perception of reality as Plato suggested? Do movies and television provide us with truth or illusion?
Remarkable advancements in transportation and mass communication in the last half-century have given rise to a true "global village" or "mass society." People everywhere have access to information about all that happens anywhere in the world. Mass media serves to provide us with a torrent of facts whilst simultaneously aiding us in organizing it (Sylwester). These channels of information take advantage of areas of powerful emotional stimulation and help mold one's views and knowledge -- as with society's swift media-powered growth in terrorism-related knowledge. in Laden was earlier an unimportant figure. Further, the 9/11 attack's many thousand fatalities were obscure office-goers until a number of newspapers across the nation printed anecdotal tribulations of them all. Nationwide firefighters and police officers, as well as…

Platos views on education are seldom accepted today, while Dewys are the philosophical foundation for much of what goes on in schools. Explain why this is the case.
Dewey's approach towards education is based on the scientific method that grew out of the enaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. It, in effect, builds on the theory of William of Occam, who denied the existence of universals (Weaver, 1984). Thus, Dewey and the rest of modern educators tend towards an emphasis on empiricism and "facts," whereas Plato emphasizes the existence of universals and how true knowledge and true virtue is bound up in the understanding of these universals. As Plato shows in Phaedrus, for instance, "a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason; -- this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw…

Plato and Socrates -- Human Soul
There are a number of philosophical tenets that have been the subject of intense scrutiny since humans coalesced into formal societies. ho are we as a species? here do we fit in with the universe? hat is morality? Do the ends justify the means? Moreover, most of all, why are we here and are we free to act as individuals toward greater good? Free will, for instance, or the idea of that human's make choices unconstrained, has been contested even as a concept. The paradigm that humans may make rational choices and that life is not predetermined from "divine" beings allows one to look at a number of philosophical constructs that are on a continuum between the idea that determinism is false and that of hard determinism, or the idea that determinism is true and free will completely impossible forms the crux of a…

Explaining Plato’s Theory Plato’s theory of ideas was based on the concept that all knowledge was innate and was achieved by way of recollection. He thus stated that “a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason,” (417) explaining that through the sense of the universals, one could grasp the Ideas that served as the ultimate reality. These Ideas were discernible, according to Plato, because they were basically written on the soul and they were recalled by the intellect. Plato described the process in this manner: “this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God—when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being” (417-418). Plato’s theory that Ideas serve as the ultimate reality stems from the concept of God being the…

belief -- or idealism -- and the way humans must evolve through a process to become actualized. In essence, we are presented with a dark cave in which there are prisoners who have been chained since birth so they can look only forward. Behind these unfortunates is a fire, the only light in their universe. Behind the fire are people manipulating puppets so that shadows are cast on the walls. So, the only "reality" the prisoners know are the lessons from the shadows -- reality, or their view of idealism. If suddenly a prisoner is freed he notices that the shadows are not real, but the puppets are. Now imagine if this same prisoner is forced out of the cave and into the light. As soon as the pain from the brightness diminishes he discovers that the most real things, the ideal, are those physical outside of the cave (Huard,…

W.E. Dubois
Education is one of the fundamental bases of society. Public colleges have represented a strong issue for years. The conditions of work were one of the aspects under debate, but the philosophy that should guide the activity of the public colleges was another theme of utmost importance. Why? ecause what it does is actually set the guiding lines for the entire curriculum. The African -American question arises naturally under these consequences. The present paper will analyze the philosophies of two important figures in this area, namely ooker T. Washington and W.E.. Duois.

It is considered that the agenda of the community colleges is in fact a political agenda. This is true if you consider that social regulations implied by the process of education in these colleges. oth the mentioned authors have suggested educational philosophies that were aimed at improving the condition of the blacks in the United Sates…

A Critique of Democracy: the Latin American Left Introduction
The Latin American Left was mainly inspired by the idealism of Marx. Marx (1873) believed that “the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.” For the Left, the main problem has always been rooted in class—as materialism is the basis of their worldview, class and class struggle was the biggest issue, and equality and egalitarian principles enacted and served in society were the goal. Marx wanted the workers to own the means of production and thus end the rule of the bourgeoisie over the laborers. This was his ideal—and the Latin American leaders on the Left made it their priority to nationalize private industry and for the state to take control of the means of production. Whether it was Evo Morales in Bolivia, Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, Castro…

Reason vs Passion: Comparing Aristotle and Plato Introduction
It must be well known among all students and scholars of philosophy that both Plato and Aristotle have a high regard for reason. But what is their view on passion? It might be surprising to learn that neither philosopher holds a negative view of passion in and of itself—what both do, however, point out is that passion should be subservient to reason. Passion that is governed by reason is certainly not a bad thing, for either philosopher, and what is more important is that some passions or emotions should be promoted over others (Urmson; Taylor).
The problem that most moderns have when it comes to understanding what passion means is that they are defining the term according to all-or-nothing terms, applying a kind of either/or approach to the issue of whether one should live one’s life by using the head or the…

It follows that the material search for riches and honor, the desires of the flesh and other aspects that constitute the material world"...lead people astray from what is their true good." (oethius - the Consolation of Philosophy)
This view is also related to other philosophical questions, such as the difference between good and evil and why evil exits in the world in the first palace. Evil is defined as a lack of reality and therefore the material world is also evil in the sense that it has no true reality. This discussion can be found in ook IV of the Consolation of Philosophy. As one commentator notes:

Philosophy shows how those who are good are strong because everyone seeks the good, and the ability to attain it is evidence of power while the evil are weak because they have not attained it. Those who are called evil are not capable…

If one has been "trained" in the ways of poverty, left no opportunity to do other than react to his or her environment, what is needed is a beginning, not repetition. The humanities teach us to think reflectively, to begin, to deal with the new as it occurs to us, to dare. If the multi-generational poor are to make the leap out of poverty, it will require a new kind of thinking -- reflection. And that is a beginning. (O'connell, 2000)
It appears that all students, regardless of class or background, need the foundation of the humanities. There is a tendency with the increase of technology to put more of an emphasis on math and sciences than the arts and humanities. For students to be well rounded, there needs to be a balance of the two.

eferences

Edmundson, M. (1997). On the uses of a liberal education: as lite entertainment…

ationalism is based on logic, or -- rather -- the proper ordering of things. That order, according to Plato, is necessarily hierarchical and his Allegory of the Cave explicitly shows it: the philosopher is one who has striven to leave behind the shadows and worked to climb the hill, until he has reached a revelation of sorts. It is then his duty to go back and instruct the ignorant who still live in the darkness of the cave by appealing to their intellect. While empiricism explains all knowledge as deriving from experience, ationalism explains all knowledge as logical. In other words, experience is not necessary to gain philosophical wisdom, for the life of the mind allows one to logically grasp one conclusion from the next. Platonic ationalism emphasizes the intellect over sheets of data.
In conclusion, I prefer the Platonic theory of knowledge because I find many of the modern…

Aristotle v. Plato
Compare and contrast the metaphysical position of Aristotle and Plato. Does Aristotle's work constitute a sharp break with the position laid down by his teacher? Or is the old saying true that he apple does not fall far from the tree?

Although their positions are often elided, the focus of Aristotle and Plato's metaphysical emphases is quite different. Ironically, given that one of his most famous works is called the "Metaphysics," Aristotle is far more interested in the material world than his teacher. Aristotle is much more concerned than Plato with the actual political and social world around him. An additional irony is that Plato is the author of the "Republic," a word used to refer to an actual, political society, not a metaphysical truth about the cosmos. Plato's "Republic," however, is an ideal society, whereby Aristotle attempts to study and critique the real, rather than to…