Only true reality can be found in the world of forms, in which everything is unchanging. Plato’s analogy is set in a cave, the cave is meant to represent the physical world, from which people only see what Plato describes to be an illusion. The prisoners within the cave know of nothing but what they have seen for all their lives. Behind the prisoners are a low wall and a walkway, in the walkway a fire burns, every now and then people walk past the fire carrying objects that reflect into the cave as shadows. The prisoners see the shadows and think that what they see is reality, like we think about our world now.
Furthermore, until they got to see what life was really like and not the artificial reality they have been experiencing. To reinforce this Plato used this quote to back up his theory of reality. '(Imagine) men passing along the wall (outside the cave) carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals'. Plato continued to explain that 'the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images'. Everything we know and believe is what our senses tell us.
They were very aware that the cave in which they sat was real. However, shadows projected on the wall in front of them were all they had to go by on understanding what the world was like, and for them what they saw they believed to be real. Once one was able to escape and leave the cave to see the difference between the shadows cast on the wall and the reality of what was casting those shadows
In Republic book VII Plato explains his analogy of the cave. Plato uses the analogy to help explain his ideological role in the two worlds which are the World of Forms and the Physical world. Plato states that the analogy would inform others how the World of Sense participate nothing but an illusion, therefore the true realism would be found in the everlasting World of Forms. Plato’s illation begins in a cave. The cave symbolises the World of Sense, a figure of captives are tired by their ankles and necks so that they are unable to change direction.
Have you ever found yourself trying to rationalize the world around you? Trying to make sense of it all but the pieces don’t fit, the numbers don’t add up, and your longing for reason and understanding seem to unachievable because of the limitations of what we really do or can understand. What if those limitations could fade away, with just one pill? Your hunger for true knowledge would suddenly be attainable. Would you risk leaving the familiar, all that you know, and all that you have ever perceived and loved, to satisfy your need of truth?
Mills vs. Rawls John Stuart Mill’s view on moral decisions rests on the utility associated with an action’s happiness. Mill’s primary belief in the “Greatest Happiness Theory” which can also be called Utilitarianism is that those actions are desirable and right if they tend to promote happiness and pleasure and discourage pain. Mill says that all other things may be valued either for the amount of pleasure they involve, or for how influential they are in leading to pleasure. Human beings experience pleasures natural only to themselves, that animals do not have the capabilities of understanding or experiencing. These “higher” pleasures are higher in quality, but lesser in quantity.
As this free man sees the light, an “eye ache” is inevitable because he’s been in the dark for too long. He will either escape to the cave, choosing to believe that the shadows were clearer than these other objects now being shown to him, or, endure the radiance to be able to look at the Sun—democracy, and contemplate its nature—freedom, without any alien medium—the government. A hero would endure the light and possess the knowledge of the true meaning of freedom—following his own conscience. However, understanding the truth by oneself doesn’t make a change at all. To inform others and infect others to join him is the real change.
The eternal world possesses the object of knowledge and is more real than the material world that holds the object of opinion. Plato is also putting forward his own view of a sequence of events that were to remain important during his life when he was only a student of Socrates through the analogy of the cave. To Plato there was a big difference between the natural world, the sensory experiences that informs people of their existence on Earth, and the world of the forms. The prisoners represent society who is all content with this incomplete world, even when one escapes they are fearful of straying from which he has known all of their life. In Plato’s analogy of
“THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE” Excerpt from Plato, The Republic, Book VII, 514A1-518D8, Socrates and Glaucon are conversing: SOCRATES: “Next,” said I “compare our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width. 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. Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.” GLAUCON: “All that I see,” he said. SOCRATES: “See also, then, men carrying past the wall implements of all kinds that rise above the wall; and human images and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” GLAUCON: “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” SOCRATES: “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” GLAUCON: “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled to hold their heads unmoved through life?” SOCRATES: “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” GLAUCON: “Surely.” SOCRATES: “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw they were naming the passing objects?” GLAUCON: “Necessarily.” SOCRATES: “And if their
First of all, his program does not call for elected leaders or dictators. It has philosophers taking up office as a stern necessity (Plato 457). A philosopher would make a better leader than a normal person because he is not blind to the truth. In his essay, Plato compared normal, unenlightened people to the men that were tied up in the cave (Plato 454). He compared philosophers to someone who had been set free, and could see the truth (Plato 455).