The allegory of the cave - Plato's theory of forms

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Rebecca Johnson 12AM

The allegory of the cave

Question 1

Plato tells us this allegory in an attempt to explain his theory of forms. This is his third and last attempt at explaining this theory.

Plato's allegory of the cave has meanings on many different levels. He uses the allegory to express his own understanding of the progress of the mind, from its lowest stages to an enlightened knowledge of the good. As humans we have no knowledge of forms in general until we begin to ask questions and wish to be enlightened.

In the allegory of the cave, the shackled prisoners represent us. The prisoners, who have been in the cave since childhood, can only see shadows of passing people and objects on the opposite cave wall. The people can hear echoes of voices, and assume that the voices they hear belong to the shadows, because they know no better. Plato likens these people to us, and tries to show us that the images we see are only a small part of what is really out there. He also says that although people think they know things, really they can barely see the surface of what is there.
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When we begin to question things by trying to look beyond what we can actually see, we are likened to the prisoner who has been freed from his shackles and is forced to leave the cave. The prisoner would find it hard to walk and would find the bright light of the fire, in the cave entrance, painful to look at; this is otherwise known as aporia. The sight of the statues would confuse him, and everything he had known or believed in since childhood. Most prisoners would prefer to believe in the shadows and echoes in the ...

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