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Summary of Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Autor:   •  January 8, 2018  •  914 Words (4 Pages)  •  609 Views

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Who should govern and what should we do with knowledge?

“…but when they have ascended and seen enough, we must not allow them to do as they do now” (Plato 55)

Gluacon thinks it is unjust to bring the prisoners back to their previous lives. Socrates explains that, the goal is not to make any group happy but the whole city. In paragraph 66, Socrates concludes by saying that the best ruler rules not out of the desire of power and personal gain but the desire for truth.

The whole point of Plato’s “Allegory of the cave” is that most of the things we get excited about such as getting rich or being famous etc. are phantoms created by our society. In this case the cave dwellers become humans before the art of philosophy was discovered, the sun is the light of reason and the freed prisoners are the philosophers.

These philosophers forcefully try to drag us out of the cave with the knowledge gained after seeing the light. It is a forced procedure because it is unnatural to be in the cave and if not freed, the blind visions will be passed on to generations. An example is the classroom; students are trapped by the indirect experience of being in school. Teachers teach what they’ve been taught by that same experience of shadows and echoes.

Plato believes that philosophers are the best rulers because the freedom that they enjoy now is what they discovered outside the cave, given to them by the state. They were trained to go back and rule. Being in their nature and their love of the idea of being free, philosophers will want to rule. Plato also believes that we all start in the cave and his aim is to let the prisoners see the light. This light is Philosophy.

Written by: Ernestine Wright, LIB 111

9/20/2016

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