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Comparing Karl Marx And Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Karl Marx is a German philosopher who famously wrote the communist manifesto and was a very influential thinker in the nineteenth century. His ideas on capitalism lead him to the solution of socialism as a natural result and believed that capitalism would eventually break down. Plato is a philosopher from Greece that lived from 423 BC to 348 BC and was a extremely important figure in the development of philosophy. His theory of the forms and allegory of the cave are well known and respected metaphysical ideas of Plato. These metaphysical ideas however highly contrast Karl Marx's ideas on what is real.
Karl Marx's metaphysics are that the universe is all there is and all there ever will be. Which is a materialistic view and states that there …show more content…
According to the theory there are two worlds; one of these worlds is the one we live in which is imperfect is constantly changing, and the other being the world of forms which is perfect and unchanging. Plato's allegory of the cave is another example of his metaphysics and is an image where people have been imprisoned since birth, and they are chained so that they are forced to look at the wall in front of them. Also behind them is a fire, and in the middle between the fire is a wall where people behind the wall carry puppets or objects that imitate people and other living things. The people only see the shadows, and the sounds of others echo in the cave so the people think the shadows are the ones making the sounds. It is suggested that the shadows are the reality for the imprisoned people because they have never seen anything else, and they do not realize that they are just seeing shadows that are inspired by real things outside the cave. This allegory is very similar to his theory of the forms and is likely related. Plato ideas clearly oppose Marx's in that Plato thinks that there are two worlds in which the world of forms or the world of ideas is most real and Marx who thinks that matter is the one true substance and cause for everything and as a result the world around us is the most

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