CHEN SOR LING (1200545) (Description of Plato's Allegory of the Cave)

The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. Plato seems to be referring to truth and the reliability of our own perceptions in regard to leading a shallow life versus leading an enlightened life. The concept of the allegory itself is very enlightening and is something that everyone should look at. It shows how different paradigms can lead to different lifestyles.

For this allegory, we are to imagine an underground Cave, whose entrance leads upward to daylight. There are prisoners in the Cave who have been chained there since their childhood. They are chained to the ground and chained by their heads. They can see only the wall of the Cave in front of them. On this wall they see projections from the sunlight of things and events that happen at the opening of the cave behind them, which they are not allowed to see. A fire is burning behind the prisoners; between the fire and the arrested prisoners, there is a walkway where people walk and talk and carry objects.
The shadows of these objects fall directly on the wall providing the sole view for the prisoners. Hence, the only way for the prisoners to get acquainted with their surroundings is to decipher the shadows and consider them to be a part of the real world. They start naming each and every object, and amongst all the prisoners, the intellect of an individual is governed by his ability to judge those objects. The prisoners perceive the shadows and echoes as reality.

If we unchain one of the prisoners and make him turn around, he would be frightened, pained by new physical movement, dazzled by the fire, unable at first to see. When he is told that the people and things he now perceives are more real than the shadows, he will not believe it. He will want to return to his old perceptions of the shadows as reality. When we drag him out of the Cave and into the World of Day, the sun will blind him. But he will gradually see the stars and the moon; he will then be able to see shadows in the daylight thrown by the sun; then he will see objects in the full light of day. The sun makes this new perception possible. If we took the prisoner back into the Cave, into his old world, he would not be able to function well in his old world of shadows.

For the allegory, the Cave corresponds to the realm of belief; the World of Day corresponds to the realm of knowledge. Intellectually, the developing thinker moves from the level of imagining, upward to common-sense belief, thence to thinking, thence to the summit of Dialectic, also termed intelligence or knowledge. The sun stands for the Form of Goodness itself. If the prisoner were to be returned to the Cave, his old fellows would not believe his experiences, since they have always been imprisoned in their world, the Cave.

Thus, allegorically, we must release the prisoners from their Cave: We must give the Guardians the experience of education so that they can become the philosopher-kings of the Ideal State, because they will be able to know the Forms and, finally, Goodness itself.
But it is not enough that the prisoner, freed, now possesses knowledge.

He must be returned to the Cave to enlighten his erstwhile fellows about the knowledge he now perceives. He is trying to persuade its inhabitants that there is another, better, more real world than the one in which they have so long been content to dwell. They are unlikely to be impressed by the pleas of this extraordinary individual, Plato noted, especially since their former companion, having travelled to the bright surface world, is now inept and clumsy in the dim realm of the cave. Nevertheless, it would have been in the best interest of these residents of the cave to entrust their lives to the one enlightened member of their company, whose acquaintance with other things is a unique qualification for genuine knowledge.

The "Allegory of the Cave" represents a complex model as to which we are to travel through our lives and understanding. The four stages of thought combined with the progress of human development represent our own path to complete awareness in which the most virtuous and distinguished will reach, and upon doing so shall lead the public. The story as told by Socrates and Glaucon presents a unique look at the way in which reality plays such an important part in our own existence, and how one understands it can be used as a qualification for leadership and government.