What are Plato\u2019s allegories of the cave and the sun about?<\/p>\n
The allegory of the cave can be found in The Republic<\/em>, and broadly summarises Plato\u2019s beliefs regarding the makeup of the world and the philosopher\u2019s relationship with it. In the allegory, some prisoners are chained up in a cave such that they can only see the shadows of puppets cast on the wall by a fire behind them. These prisoners represent uncritical laymen (as opposed to philosophers) and the shadows represent instances of objects \u2013 imperfect imitations of the real objects themselves. The puppets therefore represent the \u2018forms\u2019 of these objects; that is, the perfect ideal of the object from which all such objects are said to be derived. Plato believed that these ideal objects or \u2018forms\u2019 actually existed and were in some way more \u2018real\u2019 than the things which we see day-to-day.<\/p>\n As a prisoner is dragged from the cave, into the sunlight, they are said to become enlightened, understanding that the shadows were mere imitations of reality. The sun represents what is referred to as \u2018the good\u2019 in Plato\u2019s philosophy, which is the source from which the \u2018forms\u2019 attain their perfection. It represents the \u2018form of forms\u2019, or the very concept of the ideal itself.<\/p>\n The allegory of the cave can be found in The Republic, and broadly summarises Plato\u2019s beliefs regarding the makeup of the world and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nReferences<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"