The “Allegory of the Cave”
starts off as a story told by Socrates to Glaucon. In this story,a
group of people live in a cave underground. They are bound and unable to
move or turn their heads, and so can only look straight in front of
them.
Before them is a wall and behind them a fire burns. Others in the cave
pass before the fire holding objects which cast shadows on the wall.
Later, a prisoner is released and taken to the outside world. At first
he recoils from the bright light, but he gradually adjusts until he
sees the outside world just as if he had lived his whole life above
ground instead of in a cave.
Plato's purpose in telling this story through Socrates is not to
entertain with a tale of fancy, but to describe in metaphorical form the
reasoning behind one of his chief philosophies:
the senses cannot be trusted. The connection is clear; the prisoners in
the cave are as ignorant of the truth as Glaucon was, if he relied
solely on what he saw. The prisoners, having lived their whole life in
the cave, would look upon the shadows they saw and recognize them as
reality. In
the same way, Glaucon and others like him believed what they saw and
experienced was in fact the reality of the Universe. Conversely, Plato
believed that the truth of the Universe was hidden and that the way to
discover it was not through observation of the surrounding world but
through
logic and reasoning.
You must experience something and not only judge something from the way
it looks. You must first live in someone's shoes before you are able to
feel what they feel and understand how they live. Never judge something
by its cover and from the outside. Live and breathe, then speak.
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