Allegory of The Cave

Question: You have to examine the myth of Allegory of the Cave from Platos Republic and apply it to your own lives. The application to your life should come under the scope of achieving goals through planning and prioritization. Answer: Platos Allegory of the Cave is a philosophical example given to make people understand the actual meaning of truth. It helps to differentiate the actual truth with the fact that we consider to be truth as we see it. It is the human nature that makes people believes in what they see. None of us try to see the deep into the fact to know the ultimate truth of the facts. It is deeper knowledge of the truth from which the world is unknown. The prisoner inside the cave believes the world to be as small as the cave and does not know anything outside the cave. He believes in what he sees and contracts his world inside the cave. But the person who escapes from the cave is the actual philosopher who knows the truth of the world. He gets the opportunity to expand the world by knowing the actual facts of the world. The sun is the ultimate source of truth and the world depends on it. Hence, it is important for every person to expand their thinking and know the world in a broader way. People need to discover the actual truth by escaping out of the mirage they are captured (Pierczynski-Ward, 2002). During the fourth and fifth century BCE in Greek, people use to leave in Polis. Polis is city states. In Greek there were a number of poleis that were separated from each other through natural barriers. During that period people use to believe that the world is conserved inside the region they leave in. They dont use to believe that the world is much wider than what they see. Athens was the major city state in the Greek history. Greek was stretched across the islands of Peloponnese of the Aegean Sea. It was across spread across the Mediterranean to the Peninsula in Italy. But the people leaving in the city use to consider their own city to be their world and use to believe that all their ancestors were from the same place. They dont use to believe the actual truth of the world that people living beyond and outside Greek (Huard, 2007). They use to take their civilization as the best one. The cultural practices of each polis were different from that of the other and they use to believe that their own cultural practices are the best practices. They never use to thought beyond the city they leave in. this was same as the situation depicted by Plato Allegory of the Cave. People in the Greek were bound inside the Greek territory and were not able to think beyond it. During the 479 BCE the Persian invaded Athens and destroyed the entire city. This led to the need of knowing the outer world. This provided the Athenians to construct the city of Athens with new ideas and innovation. Aristotle the Greek philosopher is the hero of the story in this report who was able to escape from the cave by expanding his boundaries of thinking and trying to know the actual truth of the world and their existence. For knowing this he used three main steps, the first step is to know their history, from where they have come, the second step is to know their present and the things which are present around him (Alexander, Mueller Gould, 2013). The third and the foremost step that he took were to know the entire world with the help of the great king Alexander the Great. He concluded with his findings that western enquiry for centuries to come still yet. From his studies it can be understand that he believes that there are still yet many things to know and the world is m uch broader than what they think. The actual truth is much different than the truth which they see in their daily life (Sayre, 2012). From this study of the Platos Allegory of the cave of the cave it is clearly seen that people believe what they see. They dont want to expand their thinking because of their fear of knowing the actual truth. But the actual truth is much better and different than what we see (Rinker, 1990). People must take initiative to know the world in a better way and try to search the actual truth out of each and every incident. They must not get afraid of the consequences and must be brave enough to fight for knowing the actual truth of the facts. Like Alexander the Great, who without any thinking of the consequences, went on expanding his empire to know the truth of the world. He spread his empire throughout the Eurasia and proved to be a great King with the help of his Philosopher Aristotle. Hence, it is the duty of each and every people to come out of the Caves darkness and search for the real truth. References Alexander, Mueller, I., Gould, J. (2013).Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle prior analytics 1.23-31. London: Bloombury. Huard, R. (2007).Plato's political philosophy. New York: Algora. Pierczynski-Ward, M. (2002).Plato's allegory of the cave. Rinker, J. (1990).The allegory of the cave and Plato's Map for enlightenment. Sayre, H. (2012).Discovering The Humanities(2nd ed., pp. 41-80). Oregon State University.