Wait, that's not fun, you say? What if I say you can tease me mercilessly about how cheesy the essay is? Or how I have nothing to blog about and have resorted to grasping at straws?
Suns and Shadows- An Essay Regarding Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”
This essay is about Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” and whether I agree or disagree with what he postulates. I agree with some of what Plato states, and I also disagree with other aspects of what he puts forth. I will use this essay to explain what Plato believes, and then state whether or not I agree with him on those points.
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato uses describes his theory of forms through story and metaphor. Plato describes a cave in which several prisoners are bound by chains and unable to look around at any part of their environment except what is directly in front of them. There are people with objects behind them, and a large fire that casts shadows of the objects onto the wall in front of the people. The people behind them are also talking, and the echo of their words filters down to the prisoners.
The prisoners have no idea that there is anything behind them, and take what they are able to see or hear as what is real. If they were to get loose they would be disoriented by the new-found bright light that they were seeing and would need to slowly acclimate themselves to the new information hitting their eyes, and it would be even harder if they were dragged into the sunlight itself.
The freed prisoner would also be just as disoriented if they attempted to go back to where he was before, and would have to acclimate themselves all over again to the darkness of the cave. The other prisoners would see him as someone who had become unable to see and would decide that the outside was dangerous and a waste of time.
The essence of what Plato states is that what we see and hear with our senses and even is not what truly is, but a reflection of absolute truth. He feels that people can never understand true reality through our experience of the natural world, because we base our view of reality on assumptions that are merely our perception of what we see from where we are at the moment.
I both agree and disagree with this part of Plato’s philosophy. I do not agree that the objects in the physical world are merely a reflection of absolute truth. I do agree that our senses only perceive a reflection of truth, but I do not think that that means that the objects themselves are reflections.
The reason that I think that our senses perceive only reflections of physical objects is that our body does not respond to the actual object when we touch it or look at it. Science has shown that our eyes are literally seeing reflections of light bouncing off objects, and not the objects themselves. Science has also shown that what we feel is actually nerves firing information to our brain, and what we hear is actually our brains interpretation of sound waves that enter our ears.
Science has also shown that the objects are made up of matter that is quantifiable on its own, through experiments that have been carried out. We have been able to study reactions caused by other objects that have happened independently of our senses, and some objects are not even discernable by our senses at all. The objects are real, but our perception of them is not.
I agree that we cannot fully trust our perceptions and that they are not absolute truth, because they are only what we ourselves are able to see with the information we have gathered so far. I feel that making absolute decisions based on our perceptions of reality is a dangerous thing to do.
Political debate in America is a good example of why we cannot trust our perceptions as if they were absolute truth. Some Republicans and Democrats stick to the perceptions about politics they have at the moment as if they were gospel and vehemently attack others who happen to look at things differently.
Even though both sides have valid points, there is no compromise because each side is sure that they are right and the other is wrong. The truth of the matter is lost in the close-mindedness of those who are so sure that they know what the truth is.
Plato believes that only through long years of rational thought can we even attempt to understand absolute truth, because thought can transcend the limitations placed on us by our biases caused by the belief that what we experience is the only angle in which to view the world.
I agree with this idea, but I do not think that only rational thought is the way to attempt to understand about absolute truth. I think that a study of the natural world through our senses, the written word, and science can also be used to understand absolute truth.
I feel that when we gather new information and are open to it, our perception changes, and with each new bit of information, we see things at a more expansive perspective. The more we learn and the more we rationally process what we learn, the more we can see, as if we are rising above a forest and seeing more and more trees, until we can see not only the forest, but the country it resides in.
A good example of this is how people seem to see more of the world and become wise as they grow older and have had a chance to think and gather more information. Children seem to have very simple focus on whatever they want at the moment. Most of them are worried about subjects such as school, and their parents, and what is happening in a week-by-week basis.
Teenagers seem to focus on the problems they face in high school and with their parents, but they also are thinking about things such as sexual issues, drugs, and finding out what they will do with their lives in near future, when they graduate.
Adults who continue to learn and are open to new ideas also continue to expand on their perspective. They start to see the different problems that are faced by their communities and the world, and they start to see politics, first as what will benefit their towns, then what will benefit their country, and then what will benefit the world as a whole.
I feel that this is can be accomplished through our use of rational thought. I also think our experiences and empirical examination of what is happening and our study of what has been aid our understanding of the world.
An example of this is two of the great thinkers of the modern world: Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. These two scientists discovered whole new ways of viewing the universe, and they did it through a rational analysis of science. Their ideas are so complex and groundbreaking, that most people in the world cannot even fully fathom what they truly mean without years of intense study.
Plato also believes that once we start to understand the world for what it is, we cannot live fully with the people or society that we had left behind, and are still living in the perception that we had left behind. He feels that we would be seen as fools by people who cannot see things the way we see them, and that we would see them as fools and find it uncomfortable to try to live with them and enjoy the same pursuits that are no longer enjoyable or practical to us.
I do not think that someone who truly has studied and are developing a broader perspective see those who think differently as fools, and I don’t believe that they would want to isolate themselves from the people of a different perspective.
I feel that people who are intent on developing and learning and increasing their perspective are aware that their perspective is still just their perspective and not any more true than any other perspective out there. I feel that since they are studying and learning, they see that there is more information than they can ever process, and that whatever they gain will always be a drop in the bucket compared to what is available to learn.
I believe that people like this would not see the people who see things in a narrower perspective at the moment are not fools, but simply looking at things with the information they are aware of, and that they may even be aware of things that the person with the broader perspective may not.
I think that they would be happy to interact with the people who are in a different perspective, because they would not consider themselves higher or better than them, and they would know that they would be able to learn from people of all perspectives, both more limited and more broad than their own.
An example of this would be preschool teachers. Preschool teachers have experienced more in life and have learned more information than the students they teach, but they are still willing to listen to and interact with people who have a perspective that is very different from their own.
They teach the children, but they have to do it such a way that it is understandable to the children’s perspective, and not their own. They have to look at things through the children’s eyes, yet they still go home and live their lives in a broader perspective when they pay their bills and have to deal with their significant others.
I do not believe that seeing people who are not of the same perspective is limited to people of a narrower perspective seeing people of a broader perspective as fools. I believe that people of all perspectives can see others who are of a different perspective as foolish, whether or not their perspective is broader.
I believe that people have a tough time seeing past their perspective at the moment and it makes it harder for them to see things the way the other person is seeing them. We also have a tendency to get emotional about our view of the world and lash out at those who do not see things the way we see them. We consider our perspective as part of our identity, and become emotional about anyone who sees things differently from the way we see them.
An example of this would be the interaction between teenagers and adults. Teenagers say that adults know nothing about what is going on in their lives, and never listen to their problems. They also say that adults are clueless for worrying about things that the teenagers find boring and a waste of time, such as politics and careers.
Adults say that teenagers know nothing about what is going on in their lives, and care only about themselves. They also say that teenagers are clueless for worrying about things that adults find boring and a waste of time, such as fitting in with their peers and school dances.
The adult’s perspective is broader than the teen’s perspective, yet both consider the other to be fools. The teenagers are relying on the information and experiences they have at the moment, and the adults are relying on the information they have gained since they were teenagers themselves. They are both reacting to the frustration that the other person does not see things the way they see them.
In conclusion, I find Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to be very interesting and I have learned a lot from reading it. I may not agree with everything he has said, but since I am by no means a philosopher and my perception is very limited, I cannot say that he is wrong and I am right. I can only mention how I see the world today. I hope by study and learning through life, that my perception will continue to grow and flourish.
