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Plato

In Plato's analogy the cave, Plato expresses his beliefs of two worlds; the physical ever changing world and a spiritual timeless perfect world. He expresses this difficult concept in a simpler way, using an analogy. He describes prisoners being held in a cave, which Plato uses to represent the physical world which is the prisoner’s only apparent reality. The prisoners are restrained and therefore can only see ahead. Behind them a fire is burning and behind the fire people, who are carrying random objects, walk along a bar. These people are used to represent Plato’s idea of the forms. These people cast shadows onto the wall in front of the prisoners; therefore the shadows are the only thing the prisoners can see. To them, the shadows are reality, as they are all they know. This represents the illusion Plato believed that was created by our senses, and how we cannot access reality through our senses alone.
    If a prisoner is freed and finds his way out of the cave, it is then when he would see the illusion of the shadows, and what they had been representing. Here, Plato is suggesting the philosophers’ discovery of true knowledge and reality. The prisoner is released from his chains, similarly as the philosopher has to free himself from the illusions that have been created by his senses.
    Plato then describes the prisoners return to the cave and the other prisoner’s disbelief in true reality. Plato uses this to represent peoples reactions to when the philosopher who has learnt true knowledge tries to teach those who have not, because they have not yet broken the illusion of their senses.
    The analogy is used as an example of Plato’s belief in reality, and an eternal world compared to the illusion people believe are normal perceptions of reality.

    Plato believed that what we perceive as reality and truth around us is simply a shadow of the truth. Human beings can never really witness reality and truth on earth, as everything on earth is...