Analysis Of Plato's Myth Of The Cave

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Plato was an Athenian philosopher, who founded the first academic institution in the western world, the academy and is well-known for paving the path for philosophy in western traditions. He was a student of Socrates’ and often used Socrates in the discussions of his dialogues, the myth of the cave being one of them. Plato was a believer of idealism. He believed that immaterial qualities are more real than empirical objects, which we can feel, see, and touch. In the myth of the cave, Plato paints us a picture of how we can be easily fooled by our senses, and of our original perceptions of the world. We humans usually think that the most real things are solid, and can be touched. Plato thinks differently, he thinks that the most real things cannot be seen or touched. He demonstrates this through the myth of the cave in his book the republic.
In Plato’s myth there is a cave and in the cave there are prisoners who have been in shackles for all of their lives. They cannot move their heads and can only look at a blank wall. The cave is engulfed in darkness, and the only things they can see are the shadows that are reflected on the blank wall in front of them. The shadows are of the objects carried by the people, and the voices that come from the people, are thought by the prisoners to have come from the shadows themselves. The prisoners think themselves sophisticated and discuss enthusiastically of the shadows. Plato then proposes that a prisoner is freed and is
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