Class 3/2, Plato's Allegory

Notes:

• Plato's Allegory of the Cave
• Allegory- a story, poem, or picture that can contain a hidden meaning, or a moral, or a political lesson
• "Life is like being chained up in a cave"
• Plato's Republic talks about an ideal society 
• People have been chained up in a cave their entire lives so they do not know any different, there is a fire burning behind them casting shadows on the wall they have been facing their whole life 
• Their whole lives they thought the shadows were the real animals or whatever the shadow was of
• One prisoner escapes and sees the real world as it really is, he is overwhelmed by the light coming from the sun, he is very confused at first but he eventually understands what the world is really like, he is enlightened
• Light is the source of everything we see 
• The prisoner that escaped goes back to the cave and struggles to see anything in the dim light as he had been in the sunlight for long enough to adjust, he tries to tell his fellow prisoners that he is going to free them and and tells them all the things they haven't seen and the light of the sun, the prisoners tell him he is crazy and hostilely refuse to be freed
• Plato's point- people are comfortable in their ignorance and resist any other ideas on life or any other belief for that matter 
• Plato said there should be philosopher kings 
• Shadows on the walls show how things in the real world are just flawed reflections 
• Theology looks at how ideal forms exist in the creators of religion