Justin Martnez

English 220 022

The Allegory of the Cave
Plato used two main philosophical ideas during his critical thought: metaphysics
and epistemology. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the first
principles of things. Epistemology is the study of what distinguishes justified belief from
opinion. In simple terms, epistemology is what we know, or what we think we know, and
metaphysics is what is known. Plato uses the idea if epistemology in his explanation of
the divided line, which is displayed through his Allegory of the Cave.
The way in which we can know the objects of reality was very important to Plato.
In fact, Plato used the divided line to distinguish between knowledge and belief.
According to Plato, knowledge is always true and always justified, whereas belief can be
true or false, and is regularly an issue based on an outside influence. There are two main
parts to the divided line. The left side, being the sensory, is the larger of the two. It
includes the imagination, shadows and mirror images, Pistis, or faith, artifacts, etc. The
right side of the line is the intellectual side, which includes intellectual thought.
According to Plato, the left side of the line is the least real, or least known, and the right
side is the most real, or most known, with the sun as the highest point on the line
representing the greatest good, and the greatest potential for growth.
Plato believed that life came from the sun and with it, a dependence on existence.
As a result, the left side of the divided line is dependent upon the right side for its
existence. An example of this phenomenon would be that of the shadow of a flower in a
flowerpot. If we observe the flower, a chrysanthemum for example, we notice that the
shadow is only present if there is light and, of course, it is only displayed with the

presence of the chrysanthemum itself. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that the
shadow is dependent on the existence of the flower in the pot, and without it, there would
be no shadow. Another example of this idea that comes to mind is the thought of a cup.
The purpose of a cup is to hold a liquid, such as water or soda. Without it, there would be
no reason for the existence of a cup. Therefore, the existence of the cup is dependent on
the existence of water! Now, the cup itself is just an idea of what a cup actually is. It is an
illusion of what we think we know. Plato used this idea in his Allegory of the Cave.
In the allegory, Plato tells us to use our imaginations and paint a picture in our
minds of prisoners chained to the floor of a cave facing a wall. Behind them is a bridge
that travelers use to go to and from the city and the market. This bridge acts as a guide
and leads the travelers in an out of the cave. Behind the bridge, a bon fire roars and sends
light throughout the cave, thus illuminating the dark. As the travelers pass, the shadows
of the different objects they are carrying are projected onto the wall of the cave in front of
the prisoners. Day in and day out, the prisoners see the shadows of these various objects
as they are cast on the wall and, having been chained to the floor their entire lives, begin
to believe that the shadows that they are seeing are the actual representations of the
objects passing. As more and more people go by, some of the shadows become congealed
and morph into other shadows completely, thus causing the prisoners to fall deeper into
the illusion of what they think is real. Plato uses this to describe the relationship between
enlightenment and us as human beings.
The prisoners in the allegory see the shadows projected on the wall in front of
them as real life. They view this as what is known because it is all what they are

accustomed to. Plato describes this as being blinded to the truth, and not knowing the
difference between reality and fantasy. He relates this to our daily lives by stating that
without questioning and objection, we are just conforming to the way of life we are used
to. This causes us to become prisoners to our own world to the point where we cannot
even begin to imagine the actuality and reality of the outside world. In the allegory, when
one of the prisoners breaks free, he is dumbfounded to find that the world is completely
different than what he thought it was. His eyes are opened to what actually is, and he
finds that what was, truly was not. Plato describes this as true enlightenment and is trying
to show that only those who are truly enlightened will be able to see passed the hidden
truths beneath the exterior. The idea of education works the same way.
Each of us as college students are striving towards an end that will hopefully
result in better opportunities and the possibility for blissful lives. What Plato is trying to
say, is that with aggressive inquiry, discipline, and newfound knowledge, we will better
be able to understand the world for what it truly is rather than what we perceive it to be.
Only then will we as human beings be fully open-minded and accepting to the truth.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are
of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from
going into the light (Plato).

Works Cited
Plato. The Republic. Trans. Raymond Larson. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 1979. Print.