Plato's Allegory of the Cave

1.Allegory of the cave represents that the “reality” we believed in can the something that we create in our own imagination. We must free ourselves and getting out of the cave and coming to see real things with our own eyes. It can be “painful” to destroy all we believed before and establish the new thinking.  However, like the prisoner who suffers from the bright light when he first get out the cave. Eventually, he will get used to the light/brightness and be thankful to whoever brought him out of the “dark” cave and enter the world with “light”.

2.Prison house(cave)—world of imagination

Prisoner---people who is ignorant/innocent.

Shadow/Darkness—imagination/false realities

Sun/Light---intellectual world and reality

The prisoner who walked out the cave ---Philosophers

3. Plato believes that education is the process of learning spiritual knowledge;

and that everyone is given the power to learn within their soul. However, the process of enlightenment can be different from people to people. Education should a spiritual enlightenment. Plato suggests about the ideal world; it that there is equality among people. And all the knowledge/truth should be known by every citizen. As a philosopher, they have the responsibility go into the dark cave and enlighten the ignorant prisoners who still live under the shadow.

4.The “cave” represents the world of illusion/imagination. The prisoners who are impounded in the world with limit vision. The “reality” they believe is based on their imagination. The “shackles” are the restriction that confined the people who lives in the cave to walk out. I think it represents fear of the unknowing world with light. If they can’t break the shackles, they will ever have the chance to explores the outside world.

5.In society today , I think the suspicion/distrust shackle people’s mind. People can’t trust each others because they are afraid of close friends/family’s betrayal. Personally, it is hard for to trust some random people I meet online. You don’t like if they are telling the truth or lying for some purposes. The suspicion tends to restrict the free flow of information and knowledge. In addition, the egotism can be a shackle for people’s mind.

6. The perspective that the prisoners have is none because all those shadows are allusions that truly distort all reality of shape and size from objects. The freed prisoner has a far greater understanding of perspective because he actually gets to see the objects from nearby and judge as to their actual size and attributes from close. never seen it.

7. The prisoners were restricted to only the views of what the shadows presented therefore lack of clarity and confusion can occur at the same time when one refuses to look beyond what is before them essentially...lack of clarity and intellectual confusion occurs when people are either hidebound or stupid or a combination of both.

8.Cave prisoners get free when they are released into the real world. This in a way releases them to be intellectually free. It really demonstrated the prisoners getting to know reality. They feel that all the images they see and the shadows they have live by are reality and really and truly they know nothing. Not even light because they have never seen it. The beginning stage of seeing the light I think is the beginning stage to their intellectual freedom.

9. There is definitely a difference between appearances and reality. If you translate that to the modern day I think as a teenager we can compare it to the way girls act and the way they look. They might pack on makeup and make themselves look completely beautiful but sometimes they are the meanest people you will ever meet. There are always different worlds people would like to live in and I feel that because of this conclusion it is safe to say that reality and appearance can be very confusing and misleading but they are two different things that definitely exist.

10.  Assuming that Socrates's assumption that there is a difference between reality and appearance, two metaphysical assumptions that can be made is that reality is self-deceptive and therefore reality does not exist because of the discriminatory ideals between each persons reality.