Response To "Plato's Allegory of the Cave"

If you have ever read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", you would know that it is about a group of prisoners, who, from infancy, have been chained to a wall, with the only source of 'life' is moving shadows on the wall of the cave, caused by a fire which makes shadows of puppets appear. And that, one day a prisoner escapes from his chains and leaves the cave, and when exiting it, is overwhelmed by the 3D shapes and life around him, illuminated by the sun. He realises that there is more to life than all he knew when he was in the cave, and, overjoyed by his discovery, returns to the other prisoners to share the news. The prisoners, shocked and ignorant, do not believe in a more complicated life then they have had and kill the prisoner for
his 'insanity'.

When reading this story, you cannot help but think, wow, this could actually happen. If you take the literal meanings of the actual story, and turn them into metaphors, you can really see what Plato was trying to say. I can only assume that he wanted the people who read this to realize that you cannot fully trust your senses and those who are ignorant usually do not believe they are ignorant and are happy with their own reality. But is that reality a real reality? What he means is that we should be open to new ideas and not shut them out because they are different than we first believed. It is basically all about what TOK is about, to think about thinking and how we think, and try to make our thinking broader and more accepting and to always question our realities and to decide for ourselves, what our realities really are.


We can often see the examples of societies or cultures condeming those who have come to know a different reality than we do. Religion is probably the most common, as there is no solid proof of existance for every religion, and therefore, it relies solely on our faith, therefore making it a personal issue when others question it. Jesus Christ (in Christian religions) was considered a prophet and son of God, but was stoned to death by the Jews, who believed that the prophet of God had yet to appear. Often, great geniuses were condemned by others until there was solid proof of their theories, and sometimes even after that. Leonardo Da Vinci created amazing flying machine diagrams which were later discovered to be possible, as well as several studies on human anatomy, which were only truly appreciated after his death. So many people suffer from percequetion from others not believing that reality could be so much different than how they have been brought up to believe. Only with time and study are these discoveries truly noticed and accepted. It really isn't all that fair!

Humans are giving the gift (or curse) of consious thought. If we did not use it, it would truly be a shame and waste. We can learn so much from others as well as ourselves and it is always important to allow other opinions into our way of thinking, to become more balanced and knowledgable. Another point I have is that we can never truly trust our senses, but if we didn't trust them a bit, what could we trust at all? We have to understand that sometimes our senses can be fooled, but still know that at least some of what we sense is our own reality, and if a new reality is made, we should accept that and move on then.