Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
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Wolran Kim
Jan. 2012
The theme of this article appeared in the first sentence, “How far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.” There were people who were born in an underground den and could not look back because their arms, legs, and heads were chained. They faced the wall with nothing but a big bonfire behind them. They could only see shadows of themselves and of free people who were passing between the fire and them. They believed the moving shadows were reality and the truth.
But one prisoner loosened the chains and saw the reality of the shadows and the fire when he looked back. He escaped out of the cave and saw the sun which made shadows. He realized the truth about shadows. He went back into the cave to teach the truth to the other ignorant fellows but they only persecuted him because they could not understand him at all. (As if what happened to Socrates.)
The man, who saw the outside world once he escaped, was not envious of the prisoners’ trivial wisdom because there were no points in their arguments. He would rather feel pain in adapting his eyesight going in and out of the cave than honor the greedy false position in the cave. Plato’s point is that knowledge is much more valuable than comfortable ignorance, which is shown from the man suffering from the disadvantage of having to adapt his eyes in the real world.
The prisoners who were tied in the cave are human, and the shadows on the wall reflected their prejudices, stereotypes, and speculations. Today’s world is known as the new slavery era in the 21st century because of the gaps between the rich and the poor, and the importance of social status. I think that wealth and social position, which people pursue their whole lives, might be the shadows in the dark cave because people live 100 years at most. Another thing is the power which creates public opinion for political and social advantages, throwing the ignorant citizens in a dark cave for their own welfare.
Knowledge is a clear recognition and understanding from learning or experience. If I say I know, that means I do not know anything about what I don’t know. The most obvious way to obtain knowledge is education, because we have petty affairs with obvious limitations of time and space to get to know by direct experience in this world.
The cave’s prisoners were forced by recognition from the real world, and they only believed the shadows. Their ignorance came from their environment. If they were free, they would have naturally seen the fire and the sun. People seem to only know the present while the importance of education is passing in every case.