![]() ![]() (Plato presumably here is referring to his ideal World of Forms, which to him is the "truth". If he was brought out into the light, his eyes would initially be dazzled, but he would eventually start seeing things for what they really are. Socrates then describes how such a person would initially feel anger and discomfort at being pulled away from his comfort zone. This seems to be an allegory for when a person is set free from illusion, and introduced to the "truth". Socrates, (as a speaker in this dialogue from Plato's work "The Republic"), then posits what would happen if a prisoner were forcibly removed from the cave, and set free in the outside world. The prisoners mistake the shadows and echoes for reality, because that is all they know. Only echoes of voices and sounds reach them. ![]() Their only visual perception is that of shadows cast against the cave wall in front of them, cast by objects on a raised walkway between them and a fire burning behind them. The allegory of the cave involves imagining a group of prisoners chained since birth in a cave in such a way that they can only see the cave wall in front of them. We cannot perceive the nature of reality through our senses, but our organs of sense perception such as when we see or hear things, nudge our memories of the divine, or ideal world of forms, and so helps us to remember the true nature of existence. Plato believed that humans pre-exist in an ideal world of forms before they are born into the physical world of sense perception that we find ourselves in. Plato uses it to illustrate his concept of our ephemeral world as contrasted with his construct of the eternal world of Forms. Plato had been one of Socrates' pupils, so it is possible that the allegory could be based on a real conversation that Socrates had. Since Socrates never wrote anything down, we know of his teachings mainly through third party accounts. The allegory of the cave takes the form of a conversation between Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon, in one of Plato's literary works, The Republic, (Volume 7). ![]()
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