Allegory of the Cave?

Question:Was reading Plato's Republic & I am seeking some clarification on some topics.

Please explain the story of Allegory of the cave as well as the specific metaphysical views that Plato seeks to illustrate in this story.

What do you think about Plato's unique metaphysical theory expressed in this story?

What do you find to be most compelling about the story?

What parts of Plato's metaphysics do find the most problematic?

Any objections to Plato's vision of what reality is really like?

The best, fullest, most thoughtful answer receives 10 points.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Was reading Plato's Republic & I am seeking some clarification on some topics.

Please explain the story of Allegory of the cave as well as the specific metaphysical views that Plato seeks to illustrate in this story.

What do you think about Plato's unique metaphysical theory expressed in this story?

What do you find to be most compelling about the story?

What parts of Plato's metaphysics do find the most problematic?

Any objections to Plato's vision of what reality is really like?

The best, fullest, most thoughtful answer receives 10 points.

IN short, the Allegory of the Cave illustrates Plato's metaphysical distinction between the percieved and the actual--or perception and reality. This is the Kantian distinction of phenomena and noumena.

At best, it calls into question 'reality'. How do distinguish percieved from actual?

At worst, it does not push the metaphysics far enough. According to Baudrillard, we can push the percieved (simulation) so far that it becomes AS IF real (simulacra).

The only objection is that it seems too much like the Wizard of Oz behind a curtain, and it may not go far enough--given Baudrillard's work.

Prisonors are chained in a cave looking only at a wall, the puppeter makes shapes on the wall were the prisonors are looking, the shapes are the only thing the prisonors know thus thier reality,

Reality is not always what it seems.

It was unique at the time--maybe he got it from his teacher, Socrates.
Since then, however, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, and Marx, and all those who "tweaked" Kant, Hegel, or Marx, have said the same thing, in different words, in different contexts. Obviously Marx was not talking about caves; but he was talking about what was real and what was not, and said that capitalists should not be allowed to decide what was "real" when the "greater good" was more inportant than a dirty capitalist.

So we got Communism. Look at it. It came from Plato. But if Plato had been able to see the "logical extreme" of his metaphysics and epistemology, he would be appalled, he would say "No, you cannot possible get tryanny and death over billions of people from what I said," and then when it was proved that men DID IN FACT get it fom Plato, Plato was rational enough that he would have devised a new metaphysics.

Plato may not have told us existence was futile. But his student, Aristotle, differed with him 180 degrees, and no one can extrapolate anything but the Freedom of man "qua Man" from his philosophy.