Talons Philosophy

An Open Online Highschool Philosophy Course


Platos Cave Analogy

Have you ever went to one of those stores with those “mystery bags”? There usually filled with cheep ugly earring, gross coloured bracelets or even those questionable no name lip sticks that you are afraid to use because you feel like you are going to get an infection. Those mystery bags represent the meaning of platos cave to me, you never know what is held in the bag but it may be worth the $5 you will spend.

Plato’s cave reminisces on the idea of comfort, not as in how something may feel but how something may make you feel inside. Comfort to Plato would be staying chained up, head forward and knowing what to expect day by day, when the thought of seeing more of the world and experiencing other things than the cave comes to surface some people may embrace the unknown while others will simply stay withing comfort, metaphorically staying in the cave. When asked to think about an experience or moment in my life that had the same analogy as Plato’s cave , it was quite hard to wrap my head around my ideas or memories that best represented the cave until I had remembered these bags I used to buy at various stores filled with unknown objects.

Looking at my idea of a mystery bad representing Plato’s cave is hard to comprehend without me explaining to you. That $5 that you will need to spend on the mystery bag represent the cave, you know exactly what the bill looks like, you have held that bill, and you will always have that bill unless you spend it. The mystery bag represents the unknown outside world that the people in the cave have not seen, yet because we have not bought the bag we cannot see what is inside; leaving us at a state of uncertainty and questioning.

Plato’s cave is the mystery bag to me because sometimes I don’t want to give up my $5 bill to some cheep things I imagine to be in a bag, sometimes I just want to hold onto that money or comfort because then I will know for sure. But on the other hand, sometimes that risk of spending my $5 and getting something of higher value is worth the chance even if you don’t believe it. So to end things off with a question… Would you take the risk and buy a mystery bag?


-Albert Einstein

picture courtesy of ETSY


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