The “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato represents a comprehensive metaphor comparing the different ways in which normal human beings believe, perceive and acknowledge the true meaning of reality.
The reading begins with a description of the surroundings: a dim cave sets the location where a group of prisoners, chained in such a way that they cannot move their legs and necks, stare at one of the opposing walls inside the cave. One of the very few light sources, a small fire, casts shadows on the wall. Having always been in the cave, the prisoners imagine that both the shadows they see and the echoed voices they hear are real. One day, one of the prisoners escapes through his chains and is set free. As he makes his way to the cave’s entrance, the secrets of the puppeteer shadows are revealed to him and he is guided towards the sunlight, which immediately blinds his eyes. Now knowing the truth, he re-enters the cave to tell the other prisoners about his newly discovered facts of reality.
Like most things in philosophy, Plato’s allegory can be interpreted many different ways. It claims that all human beings live their lives ‘unenlightened’, and no one really sees what life is truly about. The puppeteers casting these shadows represent the individuals whom make us look at the world the way we do. The shadows, however, can be any possible source of information: a parent teaching morals to their child or, better yet, more recently, televisions, radios or any other form of informational media. Similar to when the prisoner finds the ‘true reality’, we as people have a tendency to want to expand this truth. When we do, however, we are looked down upon by others for not having the same perception and are told to be fictitious.
As mentioned on p.5, Plato claims there are two different types of visions: the “mind’s eye” and the “bodily eye”. The prisoners, when in the cave, solely use the bodily eye. It relies on the way human beings feel and perceive the world in order to determine the meaning of reality. It tells them that the world they live in (the cave, being a physical world filled with defective and imperceptive images) is real because their feelings force them to think so. The mind’s eye symbolizes a superior level of thinking, like that of a philosopher’s. In the allegory, this ‘eye’ is obtained when the prisoner exits the so called distorted world, which he thinks is reality, and steps out into the sunlight, and sees the true reality.
Plato’s allegory remains a philosophical reading that, after two thousand years of being written, continues to be discussed. There are infinitely many interpretations that can relate to the subject matter of what is ‘real’ or not. Expanding on this distorted reality, how can a ‘false reality’ be managed in order for human beings to accurately communicate their understanding of things?
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