Assignment

Plato and the Allegory of the Cave

After reading Plato and watching the embedded trailer of the “Truman Show” below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loTIzXAS7v4

Post a 500+ word essay on “Who are the Cave Dwellers of our day?”  Why?”  “How would you suggest (or convince them) they escape from the cave?”  Make sure you quote from the text to prove your point. Think of current events and those who may be living in an illusion as your write about the cave dwellers of our day. (PDF ATTACHED)

Key Points

∙ Pay close attention to the descriptive sections at the beginning of the reading (p. 6). Try to visualize Plato’s imagery or even sketch it on a piece of paper. A more contemporary analogue to the cave metaphor may be a movie theatre. 

∙ Note the language of “light” and “shadows” on p. 6. What might each of these images represent about knowledge and truth?

∙ A key passage is the description of the world outside the cave on p. 6. Note that someone who made it out of the cave into the sunlight would see things “as they really are.” 

∙ Plato’s discussion of the meaning of the allegory of the cave in the last 4 paragraphs is particularly important. He describes the upward journey out of the cave as “the ascent of the soul” into knowledge (p. 6). What he calls “the idea of The Good” is a reference to Plato’s theory of the Forms, which are described later in the dialogue. The Forms are absolute, eternal truths that exist outside the cave and which the “illusions” within the cave are only copies or replicas. What does he suggest the consequences are of not getting The Truth in the last paragraph?