Safwan ibrahim

Dr Steven Zani
PHIL 100 – 1
17 – 09 – 2018
Response to Plato’s allegory

The allegory of cave, here Plato fictionalises by creating a scenario where group of

humans has been tied with chains by their legs and neck since childhood, even restricting their

head movement where they can only face cavern placed in front of them. Since they are tied they

can only see shadows of themselves or objects that passes by, that is been casted due to presence

of fire behind them. Allegory continues with one of the cave man being released from the chain

and when he saw the real objects rather than shadow casted he wasn’t able to recognize what to

believe in. finally when he sees fire it pains his eyes, which has been alienated to any kind of

light which compels him to go back to his previous habitation which was far more clear and

concise. He was furthermore forced to climb out of cave he encounters sun where he gets more

pained but eventually when he gets adjusted with more and more exposure of light he comes to

the conclusion of real order of life and how things work. Finally, the man decides to go back in

cave to pass wisdom to his fellow men where his vision is again challenged by amount of

darkness where his fellow men makes fun of his distorted vision. Here Plato keeps the discussion

open-ended.

According to my understanding, here Plato points directly at people trapped in their own

self-belief, where they are confined through their personal experience and knowledge which they

gathered during course of their life. Here cave and shadows casted on cavern has been metaphor

for people’s own self-belief which they nurture their whole life as their own identities which

when challenged, offends them personally. And light/sun here signifies the absolute truth which

may be painful to look at first but also gets us closer to reality rather than believe in complete
false notion of differing beliefs. Here by channelizing idea of freeing the man, Plato might be

directing to the philosophers which helps us lead to the pathways of the truth that other men are

unaware of. I can also derive from this story that we as humans are comfortable in our belief of

what world is and how we draw conclusions from what we know. Shadows shows that world is

not truly what it seems, as shadows was what they thought was true happenings rather than the

real objects. But when the freed man encountered with true beings rather than false shadows he

came into realization the “real world “is more liberating and true where he could freely move

around whereas in his previous habitation he was chained and moving his neck was more painful

and limiting.

In conclusion, Plato’s thought resonated with me when he pointed out that ignorance or

misinterpretation of reality is natural. According to me most of people are still in cave including

me, because living in certain culture and believing in certain norms it might be difficult to see

everything filter-free and analyse everything for its true value. To really seek the truth, we might

want to educate ourselves and be student of those who have really seen the truth.
 Work cited
1. Cohen, marc. “Allegory of the cave.” Neuroscience For Kids – Brain vs Computer. N.p., 25
July 2015. Web, 15 Sept. 2018.
2. “The Republic.” Sparknotes. SparkNotes, 8 Jan. 2016. Web. 15 Sept. 2018.