Plato's Plight

The Plight of Plato

The Allegory of the CaveIn Plato's allegory, there is a dark cave in which people have been chained to a wall since birth. Behind the heads of these prisoners, there is a fire burning. Objects are passed in front of this fire and it projects silhouetted images onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners perceive these shadow objects as reality because they have never known anything else.Sometimes, a prisoner is freed. They look around the cave and are frightened and confused by their surroundings. They then climb out of the cave in an arduous and painful quest. When they reach the mouth of the cave they are forced to consider the sun, the world above, and the cave from which they came. This freed prisoner would then be compelled to return to the cave and attempt to free his fellow man.

The prisoners are the common man, dependent on the false reality of phenomenon. The freed prisoner is a philosopher who has stumbled onto the true reality of ideas (the sun, the world above etc.). The philosopher then attempts to convince his fellow prisoners of the true reality that they cannot see. This model was used to explain the nature of reality (the Forms), the need for education (the climb out of the cave), and the role of the philosopher (the freed prisoner), (http://education-portal.com).

So, Can you explain Plato's Plight?