Allegory of the cave

Essay by iamsarahElementary School, 5th gradeA+, October 2014

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Saunsierica Duncan

Philosophy

4/14/14

Understanding "Allegory of the Cave"

The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents a story that is telling the hardships between what we think is reality, and what is actually "truth". It is a metaphor that helps tells the difference between "being" and of "becoming". Plato believes that being is reality, and becoming is, in a way, your imagination. The reasoning behind "The Allegory of the Cave" is to show the principles that everything that we see is only a reflection of what our reality actually is. The summary of this story is about prisoners who are in a cave forced to only look at what is in front of them, which is a wall. They are chained at their neck and feet so they can't move to see what is surrounding them only to look forward to believe what is in front of them.

The two main thesis of the story is the metaphor and the philosophical story.

In the beginning of the story we get a great description of life inside of the cave. The prisoners are chained together in the darkness. The prisoners are chained at the neck and also at the feet on the floor and they aren't able to turn their heads to see what goes on behind them. He prisoners can only see shadows of what is behind them on the front wall of the cave. They prisoners believe that what they see in front of them, the shadows are actually real. I believe what Plato is describing in the cave is that the prisoners are mistaken the shadows as reality. From reading the story we know that the objects that the prisoners see as shadows are iron and wooden objects. The prisoners had mistaken those objects...