Links to Plato's Cave? [Philosophy Homework]?

Question

Majorly stuck ... I need to find out the meanings behind the Shadows, the Cave, the Prisoners & the Sun in Plato's Allegory of the Cave: Does anyone know of any useful websites that will be able to help me & aren't too complicated?

Answer 1

The shadows represent what we can see but cannot understand the workings of.
It serves to show that only those who are able to seek enlightened education and rational thought are fit to lead.


"Plato's Socrates depicted chained prisoners, who presumed shadows of representations cast by artificial light to be real. The first step of education, then, was to turn one's soul away from this artificial world of shadows and toward the representations of objects and ideas themselves - leading one to the realm of belief. The objects of belief, however, were still empirical, and thus, ephemeral, relative, and unreliable. Beyond the cave lay the intelligible realm of reason and knowledge. Plato asserted that ideas did not possess any physical qualities, and to ascend beyond the world of tangible objects and ideas, one needed to develop the power of abstract thinking through the use of postulates to draw conclusions about the universal essence or "form" of an object or idea. Mathematics constituted a particularly useful tool for the development of reason, as it relied heavily on logic and abstract thought. The ultimate stage of awareness for Plato was knowledge of the "form of the good" - a transcendence of all postulates and assumptions through abstract reasoning that yielded a certain and comprehensive understanding of all things."

The cave myth seeks encourage the reader to think beyond the immediate, surface reality and ponder how things truly work.

I read it just now and I think that summarises a very complex and important work up well
from of course Bk. vii. 514-18 of the "Republic"- an extremely important work to Western thought & politics.

Answer 2

The shadows are doubt, the cave is ignorance, the prisoners are prisoners of their own doing, the light is knowledge. Ignorance is a cave which people live in and are afraid to leave even if it would be better for them in the long run. Plato even predicted TV with the watching of the dancing shadows on the cave wall.

Answer 3

Try the link below. It is actually quite simple really. To make it more realistic think of Nth Korea. The children in north korea live in squallor and in strict conditions, but they are happy as that is all that they know. If you took one of those children to the states and let them see how children in the better part of the states live then that child would either get excited and want to share their knowledge with other Nth Korean children, or would be fearful of all the opportunities, choices and decisions available to children in the US and would want to revert back to Nth Korean ways. Lets say the child gets excited and goes back to Nth Korea to tell the others. The other children will not believe the child as they themselves have never seen or experienced such things and do not want to believe this is possible as it would mean that their life in Nth Korea is not all that is out there and is therefor not the best life possible.

The alleory of the cave is a bit deeper than that but hopefully you get the gist of it. Think of movies like The Matrix and Truman Show and how the characters in that are in denial/shock/aw when they discover that what they thought they knew to be real is all lies.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

Hi,
Try a few of these sites, for ideas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
http://www.plotinus.com/alice_interpretation.htm
http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq002.htm
http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/great/projects/Wilhelm.htm

You may also wish to read these abstracts of past essays for inspiration or a different perspective.
http://www.academon.com/lib/essay/plato-allegory-cave.html

Answer 5

Plato's cave =
Cave to hide plates in....
LOL
:-)