Where is the truth?

Allegory of the cave

Plato claimed that knowledge gained through the senses is no more than opinion and that, in order to have real knowledge, we must gain it through philosophical reasoning.

Plato begins by imagining a cave where people have been imprisoned from childhood. These prisoners are chained so that their legs and necks are fixed, forcing them to gaze at the wall in front of them and not look around at the cave, each other, or themselves. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway with a low wall, behind which people walk carrying objects or puppets "of men and other living things".

  The people walk behind the wall so their bodies do not cast shadows for the prisoners to see, but the objects they carry do. The prisoners cannot see any of what is happening behind them, they are only able to see the shadows cast upon the cave wall in front of them. The sounds of the people talking echo off the walls, and the prisoners believe these sounds come from the shadows.

Plato then supposes that one prisoner is freed. This prisoner would look around and see the fire. The light would hurt his eyes and make it difficult for him to see the objects casting the shadows. If he were told that what he is seeing is real instead of the other version of reality he sees on the wall, he would not believe it. In his pain, Plato continues, the freed prisoner would turn away and run back to what he is accustomed to (that is, the shadows of the carried objects). He writes "... it would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him."

Plato continues: "Suppose... that someone should drag him... by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun." The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him.

"Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First he can only see shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself." Only after he can look straight at the sun "is he able to reason about it" and what it is.

Plato continues, saying that the freed prisoner would think that the world outside the cave was superior to the world he experienced in the cave and attempt to share this with the prisoners remaining in the cave attempting to bring them onto the journey he had just endured; "he would bless himself for the change, and pity [the other prisoners]" and would want to bring his fellow cave dwellers out of the cave and into the sunlight.

The returning prisoner, whose eyes have become accustomed to the sunlight, would be blind when he re-enters the cave, just as he was when he was first exposed to the sun. The prisoners, according to Plato, would infer from the returning man's blindness that the journey out of the cave had harmed him and that they should not undertake a similar journey. Plato concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would therefore reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave.

In a nutshell 

The allegory of the cave distinguishes between people who make sensory knowledge for the truth and those that really see the truth. This in fact leads to the unsuitability of the person preaching the "change" In the society. Take for instance, the unwillingness to change whenever there arises a need for improvement of societal norm.

Although, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a reminder that not everyone will understand or be happy for you, when you decide to change your habits and outlook on life. Although it’s not enough to leave the cave, it’s much more important that you stay outside of the cave and even when you enter don't cease to "open the understanding" of those still inside. 

These times have even made things worst in that...some those that have "left the cave" seeks to exploit those still held in the cave. Those that had left the cage are the "enlightened ones".

The lesson from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is to question every assumption you have about that reality you call “real...done, not as a means of controlling others but as a way of making people around you live life of limitless possibilities...which will bring about a change for the better.

Thanks for reading. I hope you learnt something. If you do, kindly drop your comments 

Tumihub