Analysis of The Allegory of the Cave by Plato :: Philosophy Plato

An Analysis of The fable of the Cave by PlatoThe fable of the Cave is Platos explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He implements it as what happens when soulfulness is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must go back into the sabotage or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power crusades. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or atomic number 18 slaves to their senses. The chains that marry the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the dilate of the weaken into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the hollow out? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our souls wage increase to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellects world of opinion. two were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to see things that are not authentic, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher concord the world abstract Reality or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand abstract reality requires the understanding of math and finally the forms or the Ideals of all things (the world outside the cave). But our understanding of the physical world is mirrored in our minds by our ways of thinking. outset comes imagination (Socrates thought little of creativity), then our unfounded but real beliefs. Opinion gives way to knowledge through reasoning (learned though mathema tics). Finally, the identification of the forms is mirrored by the level of Understanding in the Ways of Thinking. The bring up to the struggle for knowledge is the reasoning skills acquired through mathematics as they are applied to understanding ourselves. The shadows on the cave wall change continually and are of little worth, but the reality out side the cave never changes and that makes it important.