THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SUMMARY MOVIE

Light is provided by a fire burning far above and behind them. They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them, because their bonds prevent them from turning their heads around. Next, I said, compare the effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature to an experience like this: Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up, which is both open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. Plato: Republic, by Plato et al., Hackett Publishing Company, 1992, pp. This allegory illustrates Plato’s view of the purpose of education.Įxcerpt from Book VII, 514-520a. It is not known whether Plato is retelling an actual dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon (the other speaker), or if Plato used Socrates more like a character through which he could express his own views on this subject. The people in government should be there not because they thrive on having power and influence, but because they understand best the principles of government.Plato writes this story approximately 20 years after Socrates was put to death by the state for “refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state” and “corrupting the youth” through his powerful, transformative teaching methods (approx. However, ordinary people who have not realized truth will frequently misunderstand those who have, because they have limited perspective rather than an enlightened perspective. This is because these people have an understanding of what the important issues really are. Plato believed that those who have found truth and understand reality are the people that are most suited to govern in society. These are the few that truly understand reality and find truth. Those that succeed, and leave the cave can see the world accurately from their enlightened perspective. Few people ever do embark on this journey in which they realize what they already know. In order to escape the realms of the cave and see truth, an individual has to embark on an intellectual journey that is painful. Everyone is capable of seeing a true reality, for they already do know truth but do not realize it. Most people never leave this realm of slavery in which they do not see the world accurately, but ignorantly see a skewed view of the world. In The Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic, Plato describes untutored people as slaves chained by their limited views and perceptions. This notion that truth is somehow embedded in our minds was also powerfully influential for many centuries. At the end of the passage, Plato expresses another of his favorite ideas: that education is not a process of putting knowledge into empty minds, but of making people realize that which they already know. But those who can achieve enlightenment deserve to be the leaders and rulers of all the rest. Used to the world of illusion in the cave, the prisoners at first resist enlightenment, as students resist education. The importance of the allegory lies in Plato’s belief that there are invisible truths lying under the apparent surface of things which only the most enlightened can grasp. The essential point is that the prisoners in the cave are not seeing reality, but only a shadowy representation of it.

THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SUMMARY MOVIE

If he were living today, Plato might replace his rather awkward cave metaphor with a movie theater, with the projector replacing the fire, the film replacing the objects which cast shadows, the shadows on the cave wall with the projected movie on the screen, and the echo with the loudspeakers behind the screen.

Such a person is then the best equipped to govern in society, having a knowledge of what is ultimately most worthwhile in life and not just a knowledge of techniques but that person will frequently be misunderstood by those ordinary folks back in the cave who haven’t shared in the intellectual insight.

The rare individual escapes the limitations of that cave and, through a long, tortuous intellectual journey, discovers a higher realm, a true reality, with a final, almost mystical awareness of Goodness as the origin of everything that exists. In “The Republic,” Plato sums up his views in an image of ignorant humanity, trapped in the depths and not even aware of its own limited perspective. Plato, the most creative and influential of Socrates’ disciples, wrote dialogues, in which he frequently used the figure of Socrates to espouse his own (Plato’s) full-fledged philosophy. Plato believed that most of us have a skewed view of the world.

The allegory of the cave summary