Plato's Allegory of The Cave Part Two
Same as the first, just so we have more then one posting to comment on.... Feel free to switch back and forth between part one and two.
Plato's The Allegory of the Cave" has been used as metaphor throughout time. As you blog in class think about some of the following questions and major ideas listed below. This is a scored blog; however, you will not just be scored on how many times you comment, but the uniqueness, originality, and creativity that you will bring to the discussion. Do not just comment without referencing the text or your peers. Read other comments and make connections to what your other classmates are saying. IT IS OKAY TO DISAGREE just support why. Do not repeat the same ideas that are presented by your peers. Use direct quotes from the reading, make connections and think outside the box. Most importantly have fun, and hope that our first experiment with the laptops goes well.
Concepts/ideas to think about
Plato's The Allegory of the Cave" has been used as metaphor throughout time. As you blog in class think about some of the following questions and major ideas listed below. This is a scored blog; however, you will not just be scored on how many times you comment, but the uniqueness, originality, and creativity that you will bring to the discussion. Do not just comment without referencing the text or your peers. Read other comments and make connections to what your other classmates are saying. IT IS OKAY TO DISAGREE just support why. Do not repeat the same ideas that are presented by your peers. Use direct quotes from the reading, make connections and think outside the box. Most importantly have fun, and hope that our first experiment with the laptops goes well.
Concepts/ideas to think about
- What is truth according to Plato?
- What do the prisoners inside the cave represent?
- What is outside the cave?
- What happens to someone that leaves the cave?
- What determines truth?
- What happens when one's truth is proven wrong?
- What is reality?
- Role of our senses
- How does this tie into society today? What are our caves?
- Why did Plato write this?
- Is it better to stay in the cave then leave the cave?
- What is perceived of those who leave the cave?
- What does the cave look like?
- Can we connect this piece of work to Athenian government? Afterall, this was a chapter in Plato's Republic.
posted by Alison | 6:36 PM
12 Comments:
I think that outside of the cave people find the sunlight to be too much. They've becomed to accustomed to the darkness and the light shocks them nulling their senses.
When someone leaves the cave, they can not see anything because of the blinding light. They will see shadows best at first, and reflections in the water before the objects themselves. They will see by night better than by the sunlight of the day.
For Doug's question I think that he is simply putting a metaphor out there comparing how the cave residents look around their fire to how puppets in a puppet show look.
I agree with Jessie that it is of Plato's opinion that people should leave the cave. I think he finds the sunlight to be a neccissary thing that the people of the caves just find scary.
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I agree with Jessie's comment. Except in a different view, more that the prisoners are prisoners of the conformity of society. Everyone's the same in the cave. As soon as the people in the cave step out of the conformity cave, if you will, the sunlight is too bright for them, because they've been blinded by the shadows. The shadows have blinded them because the people of the cave, or society, don't know how to be an individual. They only know the shadows in front of them.
I think that story is a fictional one and Plato is actually just writing it all. However discussions like this would have been common occurence in the forumns and public meeting places of Greece. So I think that the person he is talking to is actually just how he views a typical greek citizen would respond.
Now that I read that article that Jessie posted, it's helped me to understand the reading much more. It sounds like a torture cave to me. The people walking behing with the animal shapes to make the "talking" shadows are driving these prisoners insane. They think that these animal shadows are real, and that they're talking to them. It's been the only thing the prisoners have ever known, it's they're reality. When they're taken up to the sunlight, the prisoners probably think that the blinding light is their torture, but in reality they're torture is being raised not knowing that they're being tortured. If that makes any sense. They don't know that they're is a world outside the cave, or that the animals that are "talking" to them really are just the government or authority laughing at them. It's such a hard concept to grasp, but these people don't know anything but the wall in front of them and their shadow animal story that this figure of authority, whoever it is, is watching them and laughing at them.
I don't think that there are puppets at all in the cave, I think the citizens of the cave are compared to puppets, but there are none in fact in the cave. Just my opinion.
i agree with one of dougs first comment. how the story acts upon todays society. it made me see the story from a whole different viewpoint as well as helping me understand it better... however; i dont know if i agree with the part about how people first leave... "when we first leave we are to suffer sharp pains" what does it mean by "sharp pains"?
I guess I have to agree with Amanda, i don't think that the people in the cave are prisoners at all, merely people living their life in the darkness of a cave.
In society, some of our caves could be the government, conformity, or maybe a "clique" at school or work. We follow blindly when the head of the group or leader makes the shadows and the voices.
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