Plato's "Allegory of A Cave", what I thought it was about.




        Allegory of the cave is a short story about the philosophy of reality. Before I go any further I should tell you more about Plato. Plato was a Greek philosopher born in Athens in 427 B.C.E and died in 347 B.C.E. Plato was Socrates prodigy, and he continued to represent and express his mentors beliefs and views about the world. Socrates was also a philosopher. Plato uses this text to expose how the government works, how it controls what people actually know, “how they know it, and how they determine what is true” (IS 101, page 26, Plato).

       Allegory is defined as “a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.”[1]

       The first time I read the story I was completely lost and confused. I did not understand what I was reading. But when I decided to read the text again I started to get an idea about what Plato was trying to tell me as the reader. To my understanding, Plato is showing us different perspectives of which people view the world by and how some view things as real whilst others do not.

       Plato uses the cave to represent ones’ perspective of the world. To me this portrayed a closed mindset, someone afraid to step out of their comfort zone that they make up chains and shackles that stop them from seeing other things. The chains and shackles are not physically there, but Plato uses them as is they are real and he also uses them to show how people are their own prisoners in the world.

       The prisoners represent us human beings in the world, and the wall that the prisoners stare at day in day out is the reality that we humans live by and believe is the only reality. The myth about humans only using ten percent of the brain is what the wall represents. We are so afraid to look back behind us or look to our sides, we are afraid of what we might see or learn that we are fine with just starring at the wall for the rest of our lives.

       The text has opened my perspective about the world and how things work. Plato was trying to open our eyes a bit wider just to let us see more of the world and what it has in store for us. He was showing us that having a comfort zone is good to a certain extent and that sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone to be able to learn about another reality. He was also informing us that there is more than one reality in this world the only thing you need to do is get rid of the chains and shackles.



Bibliography

1. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Allegory of the Cave in The Republic. Retrieved October 13, 2017, from https://www.shmoop.com/the-republic/cave-allegory.htm

2. https://www.google.com/search?q=allegory+definition&oq=allegory+&gs_l=psy-ab.1.3.35i39k1l2j0i67k1j0j0i20i263i264k1j0l5.85676.88650.0.91521.22.11.0.0.0.0.343.1247.0j8j0j1.9.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..17.5.801....0.gKMkmxuID1Q

3. http://platosallegory.com/




[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=allegory+definition&oq=allegory+&gs_l=psy-ab.1.3.35i39k1l2j0i67k1j0j0i20i263i264k1j0l5.85676.88650.0.91521.22.11.0.0.0.0.343.1247.0j8j0j1.9.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..17.5.801....0.gKMkmxuID1Q

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