...there are four levels of knowledge, and to understand anything, you first have to understand everything. In Plato’s Book VII of “The Republic” he stages his metaphor “The Allegory of the Cave” to describe the four levels of knowledge. In “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato portrays four different stages in a cave. These four different stages are metaphors that describe what he believed to be the different stages of knowledge: imagination, thought, understanding and good. He illustrates his metaphor by depicting a group of prisoners who have spent their entire life in the darkened cave and their passage through the distinct stages of the cave, with them starting at the lower stages of the cave and proceeding to the higher stages and eventually out of the cave, however Plato believed that we as humans are not capable of reaching the last stage of knowledge (good) and that we all stop somewhere along the first 3 stages. Just as the prisoner has to reach an understanding of the sun to start learning anything, we must first use education to understand the highest level of knowledge, and then we can start really learning. The cave is built with its mouth towards the light, so that the light reaches threw the cave to the wall at the end. There is a group of humans that sit facing the wall. They have been in the cave since birth and their legs and necks are bound by chains so that they can only look forwards to the wall, and not behind them or to their sides. Behind and above them raised...
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...The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He sees it as what happens when someone is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must "go back into the cave" or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power struggles. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or are slaves to their senses. The chains that bind the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the details of the cave into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the cave? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our soul's ascent to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellect's world of opinion. Both were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to "see" things that are not real, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher understanding the world "abstract Reality" or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand...
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...Many people are afraid of coming out the cave and so they end up staying in the same place in life, not growing, not living, and more importantly, they aren’t increasing their knowledge. As for those who have more audacity, they walk out of the cave and gain knowledge, allowing them to grow and expand. I have never been hit so hard with knowledge in my schooling years and it completely mind-blown me to learn such a fascinating concept. I will never forget what Plato had created, the Allegory of the Cave because I love literature like this. Creating such an astounding metaphor like that is something that I would like to achieve in life because it gives meaning. Let alone, I like to make quotes myself and with that, literature guides me into increasing my goal in...
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...The naked truth is always better than a well dressed lie; however, the naked truth may not always be the easiest thing to hear. Finding truth can be a tedious task or an emotional roller coaster to those who are blind(687) to it. Plato discusses this in his Allegory of a Cave. Most people would rather just distance themselves from the truth than to risk finding it; however, it is better to find truth before a big surprise. There are many reasons why few people search for truth and that is because of their narrow-mindedness, self preservation, and laziness. Most people do not search for truth because of their narrow-mindedness. They do not want to be open to new ideas or ideas that challenge their beliefs. Religion is a great example of this....
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... Samar Al-Haqab Mr. Lyman Hong English 1A October 8th, 2013 Rationalism and Skepticism: Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave and Wachowski’s The Matrix Today’s modern media and society are greatly influenced by not-so-modern artists, philosophers, and writers. We have all watched, read, or analyzed something that was based off of the idea of someone before us. One example for this would be the movie Inception (2010), directed by Christopher Nolan. In this movie the depiction between the idea of a dream and reality is extremely contrasted to the point where it is difficult to draw the line between what is or is not real. The mind boggling adventure of this movie makes us wonder; did the director draw this idea from thin air? The answer is no. In fact, the animated film Paprika (2007), directed by Satoshi Kon directly resembles the ideas and concepts of Inception. This is because Paprika served as a basis for Christopher Nolan in his movie Inception. Movies, concepts, and ideas are always being interpreted or rephrased in different forms. Aside from these two movies, there are other works that are very similar by concept. Two pieces of work that will be discussed further in detail are, the philosophical work, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Lana Wachowski’s movie, The Matrix. Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave walks the readers through a dialogue between a character named Glaucon and Plato’s former teacher, Socrates. They discuss the predisposed...
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...Allegory of the Cave The allegory of the cave revolves around a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon, who was Socrates’ student (Pearcy). Plato designed “Allegory of the Cave” as a theory to concentrate on human perception (Trumpeter). Plato refers to knowledge being acquired by the senses as an opinion, but that real knowledge is attained by philosophical reasoning. Plato describes the difference between people who can not differentiate between sensory knowledge to reach the truth and people that actually see the truth. In order for Plato to explain his theory of “Allegory of the Cave” he divides it into five main points: the cave, the shadows, the game, the escape, and the return. In this paper, I will explain and decipher all five...
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...Book VII Summary: Book VII, 514a- 521d In Book VII, Socrates presents the most beautiful and famous metaphor in Western philosophy: the allegory of the cave. This metaphor is meant to illustrate the effects of education on the human soul. Education moves the philosopher through the stages on the divided line, and ultimately brings him to the Form of the Good. Socrates describes a dark scene. A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing the light of day. These people are bound so that they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, lying out of sight behind the partial wall. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows across the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because these shadows are all they ever get to see, they believe them to be the most real things in the world. When they talk to one another about “men,” “women,” “trees,” or “horses,” they are referring to these shadows. These prisoners represent the lowest stage on the line—imagination. A prisoner is freed from his bonds, and is forced to look at the fire and at the statues themselves. After an initial period of pain and confusion because of direct exposure of his eyes to the light of the fire, the prisoner realizes that what he sees now are things...
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...The cave is very dark because there is little light inside it and hardly seen the objects. There are some chained people on their necks as well as feet, these chained people cannot move easily. Similarly, there is also another world out of the cave world, but between these two worlds, a wall is raised. On the wall, many other people move with different things on their hands and their shadows fall in the cave world. The people inside the cave cannot raise their head completely so that they can only see the shadows like illusion, which they believe, as real but it is just their illusion. - See more at: http://www.bachelorandmaster.com/creationofknowledge/allegory-of-the-cave.html#.Vm1VcUp961s Plato also talks about an ideal state, which is a utopian world. In an ideal state, there is equality among the people because no one is superior or inferior in this world. There is free flow of knowledge justice and truth, everywhere in the ideal state. Plato is also known as the first communist because of his concept of equality among the people. In the ideal state, rulers are also true philosopher whose wealth is not money or gold but spiritual knowledge. Those are the best rulers to rule the ideal state because they are reluctant to rule and active to serve the people as true servants. In other words, the rulers at the ideal state are never thirsty to exercise power, they do not want to impose cruelty over the people but instead they are worried of the condition of the people and the welfare...
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...The whole point of the allegory of the cave is to show that people will follow what they are shown rather than find the truth themselves which is exactly what is happening to the culture in Fahrenheit 451 with the censorship. The people are told what to watch and think and they follow blindly because they don’t know any better. Montag however realizes that books might be the key to getting them out of the “cave.” Montag figures out that books are not the sole way to save their society, but that they will help the people to begin to see their poor decision to give up on thinking and cause them to change. Even though Granger and Faber are shown as smart characters who used to be professors many people overlook the genius that Montag held within him. Montag despite only recently starting to read had unlocked the way that books could help their civilization. Montag symbolizes the potential that each person still held to learn and gain knowledge. Montag proves...
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...Chengkai Zhang Professor: Michael Harper English 1C 21 May 2013 Critical Thinking Is Understanding “Which form of human thinking is preferable: knowledge or understanding?” In order to examine this question, a close look at the concepts of knowledge and understanding must take place. The first task is to define the two parts of thinking, both knowledge and understanding. In the simplest terms, knowledge is facts and understanding is meaning that is given to those facts. However, there is objectivity and subjectivity to consider in relation to both knowledge and understanding. First, knowledge can be considered more objective because it is raw facts, and not subject to a person’s interpretation of facts or what the knowledge “means.” This is because what the knowledge “means” will be different for different people. In other words, understanding is subjective because it is based on a person’s unique human emotions, opinions and judgments. This is how understanding is interpreted for the person, and how raw knowledge is turned into something more meaningful for the person who learns a new fact. It can be argued that understanding will always require some level of subjectivity. What this means is a fact can not be fully “understood” unless it is put through the filter of a person’s own experience. This is naturally a subjective process. However, without knowledge, understanding could not occur. It is clear that both types...
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...basic theory and ideas of Machiavelli and Plato. Both Machiavelli and Plato produce arguments for order in the state but they have different notions of how to go about order. Plato obsesses with certainty and has an ideal form of order, while order with Machiavelli is learning to live with uncertainty. Machiavelli believes we need to be able to work with insecurity and not try and produce certainty. He believes we embrace uncertainty by developing our own armour. Knowledge is the basis of leadership for Plato while Power is the basis of leadership for Machievelli. In the Republic the Allegory of the Cave represents Plato's views on philosophy. Basically, we are all in the cave and Philosophy is what brings us out of the cave. Plato believes that Philosophy is the highest form of inquiry, just because it alone involves no presuppositions. I do not believe this to be true because The Allegory presents, in brief form most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions. Meaning of statement is not clear Examples of these assumptions are his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of...
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...Journal Entry 11.Chapter 5: The teacher and his teachings, Pages: 108-109. Monday 24, 2014 A New Kind of Teacher Socrates a different kind of teacher, he was not paid to be a teacher and his teaching method was different. He believed that people could not think clearly if they are not clear on what they are analyzing or talking about. Therefore, in his teaching sessions he would ask questions and answer them the best he could. So I wondered, how different would the education system be if we had follow Socrates way of teaching? Socrates is one of the most important people in western philosophy. I found it interesting that we have no writings from his own hand, from his two students Plato and Xenophon. I agreed with Socrates claim that appearance of the body is less important than how it functions and true beauty comes from spirit and character. I questioned if spirit and character is more important than the physical appearance, why do modern society judge an individual based on their physical appearance? Journal Entry 12. Chapter 6: the Theory of forms. Pages 144. Thursday, February 20, 2014. Knowledge Vs. Opinion Plato is one of the philosophers that interest me the most because of his search for knowledge outside his “comfort zone.” Plato left the Athens and wandered for twelve years and during that time he studied mathematics and mysticism. For me, as a math minor, it was interesting to see how mathematics influenced Plato’s philosophy and I wondered, does an individual’s...
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...Essay PHIL 201 July 7, 2014 Essay After reading these pieces I concluded that the central theme is being awaken from a false reality but each piece differs in the action that follow the awakening. The Matrix is set in a futuristic setting, where the theory of being controlled by a massive computer is a real possibility. What I find most interesting is that Plato actually describes the concept of The Matrix, almost as if Plato’s dialogue was used an inspiration. In The Matrix and Plato’s dialogue, humans are not physically living the life they perceive as “real” but are stationary beings who are forced to live a false reality prescribe to them. This is where René Descartes’ excerpt differs from the previously mentioned. The person is aware of possibility that what he knows as true could be false, that how could we know if what we are living is done consciously or if our existence is but a dream. All of the excerpts also rely on the reasoning that the mind is the sole contributor of our existence and our physical senses only respond to what the mind knows. The differences in the readings is based on the actions or possible outcomes that occur once the awakening has taken place. In The Matrix, Neo decides to act and decides to embark on a journey to discover reality not being controlled by a computer. Plato’s dialogue is different because this is based on a hypothetically theory, so while there is no physically action the questions lies in how would people respond to...
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...terms of Plato's allegory. From his view, what does each of the symbols represent? When attempting to identify these symbols through the view of Aquinas, I see some similarities and a few differences. First, inside of the cave, in Aquinas’s eyes would be uncritical thinking, misinformation or the denial of a prime mover or belief in a god without doing the analyzing like he did. Basically, the cave symbolizes the non-physical barrier that separates so many people from escaping the uncritical, bias world. Next, the prisoners could be viewed as ignorant people who are resistant to the change or those who have strong biases and emotional ties to their beliefs. In other words, uncritical thinkers. The interpretation I personally have of the prisoners is that they are still uncritical people but that it is not their own will. They have so many things influencing them as they grow and mature that it is hard to remain objective in the world. Following the prisoners, the shadows could be interpreted as home-instilled values, things that one is taught while growing up and never contested or questioned. Media too can be connected to the influencing, just as these shadows do. I have experienced this in my own life so I know it to be true, parents can teach their children ideology and the kids may never question it…they just accept it. Additionally, the escapee could be seen as Aquinas himself, in his specific situation. Breaking out of the norms and doing the tedious analysis he did, all to...
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...things and his beliefs and perception as compared to how Voltaire looked at life. This is a summary of what was captured in Apology, allegory of the cave and the Good Brahmin. These stories have good implication on the essence of philosophy in life. What is philosophy and how should we consider it? In short, these essays talk about enlightenment, which is a process whereby a person comes to know the truth as opposed to being ignorant. Socrates’ views of life are shown in the stories of Apology and allegory of the Cave. The main one that shows Socrates’ ideas is that of the allegory of the caves, which will be explained briefly in this essay. In the allegory of the cave there is a tantalizing scenario. The scenario is as follows. It is shown in a state of things that a young person has been in. The scenario is like that of a person who was born and ever since his youth hood was placed in a cave. In this cave there is no light. This person is chained there in that he is not able to turn even his head to see what is around. The person looks in one direction. In the direction in which he looks there are shadows that come from the reflection of the sun. The sun is outside and only shadows of the things that are moving outside are shown in the cave. There are things roaming outside and their shadows are seen from inside. For a person who has been in the cave for a long...
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