What is the Allegorical meaning of the "Allegory of the cave:?

Question:The Allegory of the Cave basically proposes that the world that we see is a world that has been pulled over our eyes to conceal the truth. Sound familiar? It should - that's the premise to "The Matrix."

In the Allegory of the Cave, certain men are taken prisoner and forced to live in a cave lit only by a fire behind them. The men are forced to live on their knees with blinders on - and their heads secured so that they cannot turn their heads. To complicate things, they are placed behind another small wall that keeps them from seeing their own shadows. And if anyone is to walk by, their shadows are cast from the fire onto the cave wall in front of them so that the only shadows they see are half shadows - shadows of half bodies. Sooner or later, Plato proposes, that these men will begin to accept the shadows as reality. They will be able to identify people by their shadows, even to the point they could associate a voice with a specific shadow.

At the end of the story, Plato describes how one of the men escape the cave, come out into the sunlight, sees his own reflection in water, and discovers the true world outside the cave.

This is the good part. Plato believed that it was not simply enough to search for knowledge and obtain an answer. But when we obtain knowledge we have a responsibility to share it with others. If Jesus Christ is a truly a fictional character, then early Christian propagandists made Him up based on a type of Plato. In the Allegory of the Cave, the man who escaped and discovered the outside world now has the responsibility to go back to the cave and share his knowledge with the other prisoners.

At this point Plato explains that the nature of man is such that men do not believe what they cannot see. The men whose entire existance is defined by shadows simply will not be able to understand the man who can describe light and color and objects. These ideas are completely foreign to the prisoners. Sooner or later, Plato describes, the prisoners will reject the message and the man will have to leave the cave.

If this sounds familiar it should. Not only is it the story of "The Matrix" it is also the story of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus came and described God's perfect kingdom, but how can we who have never seen "Heaven" ever begin to understand or even believe what Jesus described. The Allegory of the Cave provides a lot of fodder for arguments that Jesus was completely made up by early Christians, and that they based the character of Jesus on the writings of Plato.

You can do a search on the internet for a diagram of the cave. It's not too complex.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The Allegory of the Cave basically proposes that the world that we see is a world that has been pulled over our eyes to conceal the truth. Sound familiar? It should - that's the premise to "The Matrix."

In the Allegory of the Cave, certain men are taken prisoner and forced to live in a cave lit only by a fire behind them. The men are forced to live on their knees with blinders on - and their heads secured so that they cannot turn their heads. To complicate things, they are placed behind another small wall that keeps them from seeing their own shadows. And if anyone is to walk by, their shadows are cast from the fire onto the cave wall in front of them so that the only shadows they see are half shadows - shadows of half bodies. Sooner or later, Plato proposes, that these men will begin to accept the shadows as reality. They will be able to identify people by their shadows, even to the point they could associate a voice with a specific shadow.

At the end of the story, Plato describes how one of the men escape the cave, come out into the sunlight, sees his own reflection in water, and discovers the true world outside the cave.

This is the good part. Plato believed that it was not simply enough to search for knowledge and obtain an answer. But when we obtain knowledge we have a responsibility to share it with others. If Jesus Christ is a truly a fictional character, then early Christian propagandists made Him up based on a type of Plato. In the Allegory of the Cave, the man who escaped and discovered the outside world now has the responsibility to go back to the cave and share his knowledge with the other prisoners.

At this point Plato explains that the nature of man is such that men do not believe what they cannot see. The men whose entire existance is defined by shadows simply will not be able to understand the man who can describe light and color and objects. These ideas are completely foreign to the prisoners. Sooner or later, Plato describes, the prisoners will reject the message and the man will have to leave the cave.

If this sounds familiar it should. Not only is it the story of "The Matrix" it is also the story of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus came and described God's perfect kingdom, but how can we who have never seen "Heaven" ever begin to understand or even believe what Jesus described. The Allegory of the Cave provides a lot of fodder for arguments that Jesus was completely made up by early Christians, and that they based the character of Jesus on the writings of Plato.

You can do a search on the internet for a diagram of the cave. It's not too complex.

Plato made it as obvious as he could possibly make it.

READ IT. It ain't that long.

Hooray! "Plato believed that, in theory, you could dig and dig and dig, and eventually you could reach and "ultimate" truth." That made me think again about a part of Plato I had not used for a while.

AND "The Allegory of the Cave basically proposes that the world that we see is a world that has been pulled over our eyes to conceal the truth. Sound familiar? It should - that's the premise to "The Matrix." That also gave me pause for thought. Despite my belief that the Questioner ought to read it (and both of you agree, I think),--in your explanation you went beyond the explanation and told *something about Plato's motives."* That is always interesting to hear.

Plato was a doubter. His doubt led us into the Dark Ages (via Augustine.) But the genius in him conceived of almost all the questions we still ask today in Philosophy.

As I said to another Questioner: Plato may not have told us the world, as too many believe, was "futile";

but Aristotle, who disagreed with Plato 180 degrees definately told us it was not.

Horray for Aristotle. Hooray for the Answerers. Thank you.

I agree. It is something everyone should read for themselves.

Plato meant that we are all like shadows on the wall, we don't last long .... but we last a lifetime.

Yours truly,
Jonnie

Plato believed that, in theory, you could dig and dig and dig, and eventually you could reach and "ultimate" truth. The point of the story, though, is never to assume the the truth that you know now is ultimate or that a newly uncovered truth is ultimate becuase there will always be a deeper truth to unveil. Also, don't consider yourself above others because you know more; in the end, you are just as relatively ignorant as they. It should be noted that Plato acknowledged the existance of an ultimate truth, but reaching it was beyond human capability, not to say that it shouldn't still be persued.