2) How can one justify the things outside the cave were actually any more "real" than shadows?
3) What is the biggest flaw in Plato's analogy of "Allegory of the Cave" in your opinion? (ex: the symbols could have been better used, the representation of the story, etc.)
1) The prisoners are only accustomed to a specific set of perspectives that limits their understanding of their surroundings, making it appear, in their eyes, that their perspectives are intact their only surroundings and source of reality. The enlightened prisoner's observations are foreign to the other prisoners and surreal, as they have not been exposed to such a deep understanding of the world. Also, the newly enlightened prisoner represents knowledge itself in the mind of a person poisoned with ignorance: knowledge attempts to enter into a mind of ignorance but is ignored as it is seen as unordinary.
ReplyDelete2) The things outside of the cave are no more real than the shadows in the cave. This is in reference to the individual, as their realities are defined by what they have experienced not just what is tangibly correct. The shadows are the prisoner's sense of reality in the that regard.
3) Plato creates a pessimistic tone for the quest of knowledge. The ignorant are confronted by an enlightened individual that they discredit and turn down, suggesting that knowledge is not an option to some and that some will remain forever ignorant.