Plato's Allegory of the Cave

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?

•  The allegory represents how we refuse to see what is real, and how we reject reality. Until we are shown by someone else, we generally don't want to see the "sun". By doing that, we close ourselves into a cave where we believe what we see and we don't really think at all.

2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?

• Prisoner- ignorance
• The freed prisoner- philosophers
• Sun- reality
• Cave- imagination

3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?

•  Enlightenment and education really isn't something you can find for yourself. Someone has to give you the opportunity and you have to be willing to take it. Also, enlightenment and education are metaphors for the sun.  

4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?

• The shackles suggest that the prisoners are essentially slaves to the "puppeteers". The prisoners are forced to only see shadows, so their mind is in a prison they can't escape without freedom into reality. The cave is the prison, but in this case, it is more of a slave prison than a prisoner prison.

5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?

• The government shackles the American mind. They all say that the power is in the people, but realistically there are many "under-the-table" deals that happen in the government. 

6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?

•  The cave prisoners are restricted to only what they can see, in this case the shadows on the wall, but the freed prisoner can see reality. By seeing what is real, the freed prisoner can think for himself and believe what he wants to believe.

7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?

•  One of the prisoners were freed from the shackles. He was confused and didn't know what to think about reality and the shadow.
• Inside the cave, the prisoners were only seeing shadows on the walls.

8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?

• The cave prisoners get released by outside influences in order to get free. Intellectual freedom comes through experience. One cannot call "free thought" intellectual freedom because intellectual freedom has to be valid.

9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?

• For the most part, what you can see is pretty real. In a certain point of view, the shadows that the prisoners were seeing was reality. It was reality in that the shadows were real things, but the prisoners just didn't know what or where the shadows came from. From another point of view, appearances and reality are different. Just like the freed prisoner, the moment he turned around he saw what was really going on.

10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?

• 1: Reality does not really exist. What we see is completely different than what other people are seeing. We see an apple because we want to while others could be see an orange. In the same effect we hear only what we want to hear.
• 2:  The life we live is all a dream, and our death in the dream is the awakening of another dream as another person. Except we don't have any recollections of the past.