Platos Allegory of the Cave - Essay Example

 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave Introduction Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a theory presented by Plato, concerning human perception. Plato claimed that knowledge gained through what we hear, see, taste, smell or feel carry no basis in it and is merely our own opinion. Real knowledge is gained through philosophical reasoning. Allegory of the cave is a philosophical writing by Plato which he used to pass out most of his philosophical messages. In his work Plato took the example of three prisoners sited in a dark cave. This cave has an outlet and right at the outlet is a burning fire that reflects light inside the caves wall. People pass outside the cave carrying things on their head casting shadows that fall on the illuminated part of the caves wall. The prisoners come up with a guessing game on what the images they see on the wall could be. The one who gets his guess right on what the next object to appear is gets praised by his fellow prisoners and is viewed as a master of nature, even though none of these things they guess have they seen or known. Plato finds a problem with this kind of knowledge where people believe in truth in things they have even not seen or experienced. Plato has his own view of how people should perceive and arrive at truth in their daily encounters in life. The first perception is: sensory perception. This entails the world as it appears, how we see it, feel it using our senses. The second kind of perception is spiritual perception. This comes about after we ignore the sensory perception and set out to seek deeper insight on the basic knowledge we have (Herman 2013). This previous perception happens to be Plato’s ideal philosophy of all time and the ideal kind of concept. Aristotle’s rhetoric can best be defined as the art of observing the necessary cause of persuasion in any given situation. According to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, he finds it okay for people to talk about things (ideal) they envision or have heard about as though they were actually in touch with them (Rorty, 1996). In his view this believe in the vision would bring them even closer to these ideal. Aristotle believed that human beings had the ability to look at how communications happen around them and deduce meaning and come up with convincing arguments by applying the rhetoric’s method of communication to justify their beliefs. When one of the prisoners finally escapes from this bondage, he gets to see the world as it is for the first time. All that he sees in this new world is shocking to him and does not seem real. He gets used to this new world and gets to understand that his view of reality from the cave was wrong and that his formal life in the cave was useless. But this journey to intelligence is painful, strenuous and confusing. However he finally endures it (Heidegger & Sadler, 2002). Plato then poses these questions to us what courses of action will the prisoner take from there? Will he go back to the cave and enlighten his fellow friends? And what method of communication will he employ? In order to effectively communicate with his friends, the prisoner must employ a transmission mode of communication. Aristotle’s rhetoric on the three means of persuasion that is pathos: characters of the person conveying the message, ethos: emotional state of the recipient of this message and logos: the argument itself, how logic is it? First the prisoner has to bring the experience of the light to the other prisoners in the cave. To create an idea of the light and the outside world in their mind and make them believe it even if they have not encountered it. They are however not ready to have their friend’s experience of the world. They are not ready to be freed from this bondage as they even threaten to kill him should he set them free. To them the cave as their comfort zone is just good enough for them. They do not want to encounter any other life beyond the one they have in the cave. Plato in his allegory of the cave basically tries to pass out the message that, judgements should not be arrived on at face value. He uses symbolism to represent the various characters of people and how they view the world. The cave stands for people who believe that knowledge is acquired from what we see and hear in the world what we call empirical evidence. However in Aristotle’s view stated earlier, people are free to believe the visions they have embedded in their mind about various things even if they have not encountered them (Heidegger & Sadler, 2002). This envisioning according to Aristotle somehow brings people closer to the actual experiences. The Shadows represents the perceptions of people who believe just seeing and hearing a particular thing means knowledge of it. The shadows the prisoner sees dazzles and confuses him they are things he has not even a single clue as to what this things are. The prisoner must refuse these visions as they are foreign to his understanding of the world. He must also reject this one way kind of communication as the light is only dragging him upward yet he has no knowledge of where this light is coming from. Believing that what one sees is truth is merely seeing and believing in a shadow of the truth. The Game represents how people adore one person if they happen to have empirical knowledge. It shows how people and society at large can be enslaved into the insights and ideas of one person who they believe have the knowhow. However, according to Plato, this person does not know a thing about truth and it would be wrong for others to believe him or fall into this kind of slavery. The escaped prisoner symbolizes the Philosopher, who seeks knowledge beyond the cave and beyond what can be seen, felt or recognized through our senses. The other prisoners response to the friends returning depicts that people are scared of knowing the truth are not willing to accept the truth and cannot trust their friend. They chose to remain in the dark despite their knowledge of existence of light. His return signifies the need of the philosopher to spread knowledge and wisdom of this other world to his fellow prisoners. Plato compares the whole idea of “the allegory of the cave” to people who just accept information without wanting to seek deeper insight about the information they are receiving. He views such people as people living in the dark, in bondage and are no better or different from the prisoners in the cave. Who even after getting to know the existence of light, do not purpose to seek this light. The idea in allegory of the cave to some extent tends to dispute Aristotle’s rhetoric in terms of knowledge acquisition and arrival to truth. The claim to knowledge should be based on deep insight on and connection with the things we claim to be knowledgeable about. Not just built up ideas on what the things we claim to know might be like. Our claim to knowledge should not be based on ideas; rather we should seek insight into these ideas. Conclusion The allegory of the cave seeks to enlighten people on the need to seek deeper meaning and insight of the world we live in. Plato champions for knowledge beyond senses. He advocates for spiritual perception as the best kind of perception (Herman, 2013). This is only achieved when one chooses to go beyond sensory perception that is what we one can just recognize using the senses. Rhetoric on the other hand contradicts Plato’s allegory of the path in that it advocates for believe in things we have not seen as long as we have an idea or clue of what these things look like or might look like. That is, rhetoric advocates for empirical knowledge (Rorty, 1996). The two philosophies at some point merge in that prisoner on his return in order to effectively communicate and convince his fellow prisoners on the reality of the outside world he has to use Aristotle’s methods of persuasion first has to appeal to their emotions and mentality. He has to make them visualise the outside world in their mind so that by and by he can make them believe in its existence then finally led them to it. References Ackrill, J. L. (2001). Essays on Plato and Aristotle. Oxford [u.a.: Clarendon. Heidegger, M., & Sadler, T. (2002). The essence of truth: On Plato's parable of the cave allegory and Theaetetus. London: Continuum. Herman, A. (2013). The cave and the light: Plato versus Aristotle and the struggle for the soul of Western civilization. New York: Random House. Rorty, A. (1996). Essays on Aristotle's Rhetoric. Berkeley [u.a.: Univ. of Calif. Press. Read More