Allegory of the cave. summary

Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself
and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most
of Plato's majorphilosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed
by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real
world can only be apprehendedintellectually.

the Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Divided Line represents the visible (images and shadows)
vs. the intelligible (searching for answers)

The shadows:
that theprisoners of the cave looked upon represent the perceived truth.
When people do not have the knowledge to look beyond the visible truths they only have
the capacity to believe inshadows and do not even know how to begin the search for the
intelligible.

The campfire
in the cave represents the power of the sun. The fire has the power to illuminatethe perceived
truths of the cave. The fire illuminates what the prisoners can see and shows them what to believe
in. The sun in similar in that it provides the light requiredto allow people to see with their
eyes.

The path
outside the cave is steep, rocky and painful because all things that were believed to be the truth
and real are becomingunclear. Once the truth is known a person cannot go back to previous beliefs.

It is difficult to accept and understand new things. The life of the individual is being changedas they are told all previous beliefs are inconsequential. This is hard to accept. It is possible
to live outside the cave once your mind is open and you try to understand theintelligible, not
just the visible. You must try to understand the difference between non-reality (shadows and images
reflected in the water) and reality (the image itself).