The Cave A Symbolic Form Of The Modern Day World

Introduction to Political Philosophy Plato used imagery to elaborate the forms of theory. One of the allegories he used to explain forms of theory is that of a cave. He introduced the allegory of the cave saying that there are three prisoners tied to some rocks, with their arms and legs bound and their heads tied up so that they can only look at the raised stone wall which separates them with the other world, they see shadows of people on the other side of the wall but they assume them to be an illusion, they have been there since birth and never seen the outside of the cave (Plato, 2011). The cave is a symbolic form of the modern-day world, which is full of obliviousness while the chained prisoners represent the people in that world whose perspective concerning life is shallow and ill-informed. The raised stonewall is the demarcation between the world full of ignorance and false perceptions and the people who love knowledge and responsive to change. Plato says that the prisoners would take the shadows to be real things and the echoes to be real sounds that are not a reflection of the reality as that is all they had even seen or heard (Plato, 2011). That can be interpreted to mean that for one living in a world of ignorance, which is devoid of knowledge has very scanty information regarding matters of life and will easily mistake one thing for another. Such individuals will try to relate anything they observe or experience to the little information they have which isShow MoreRelatedThe Origin Of Modern Human Behavior1600 Words   |  7 Pages The origin of modern human behavior is a subject in anthropology that accumulates much debate. 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