How Believers Can Undersrand The Allegory of The Cave

In order to understand Plato’s Allegory of The Cave you have to be a believer. So come with me I'll show the meaning of enlightenment. In looking at Plato’s Allegory of The Cave we will consider what Plato’s ideas about enlightenment are in order to find a living individual who can fit his definition of enlightenment. Our story starts out with three inmates who have been captive in a cave since birth. The inmates are all looking at a wall while the bodies are all chained up. Leaving them unable to move and escape the cave.

There is also a fire behind them that is letting off a dim light and when objects or creatures walk by they can see the shadow of the objects. The prisoners would take part in a sort of game like activity calling out what they think they see. Then miraculously one of the people escape from their shackles and goes out of the cave. When the person leaves the cave he is blinded by the sun. He is also surprised to see the world and is confused because he is finally being challenged by what he thought was reality. He realizes that the shadows were only reflections. Once he got used to his surroundings he could finnlay see everything clear. He can also finally see the sun which he believes is how he can see everything.

After a while he decides to return to the cave to tell other people what he has seen. But he was now used to the outside would that his eyes had trouble seeing in the cave. When he tells them that what they see isn't true. The prisoners act hostile toward him and don't want him to release them. But who wouldn't act this way when someone who is challenging what you have known all your life is trying to tell something different than what you already know?

So what's Plato’s real meaning of enlightenment? There are many parts of the story that show his meaning. Playto points out that a lot of people don't like it when you say something that makes them look wrong or challenges their beliefs. The cave can mean that people are too uptight to rule themselves and must have someone else do it for them. You can look at this in many ways and the story can lead to many different questions. One thing that we have to remember when talking about plato is that we have to look at it as ourselves and ask ourselves what we should do? Would we let fake images guide us or will we look to find the true everything that we do.

One living individual who could be compared to Plato’s meaning of enlightenment in my opinion is Leonardo Decaprio. There are multiple reasons why Leo is Enlightened in my opinion here are just a few good examples of it. Aside for Leo’s spectacular movie and film career he has an immense amount of knowledge when it comes to other groups that he takes pride and interest in. Leo was designated a UN Messenger of Peace. He is a major activist for climate change and human aid. Leo can be compared to Plato’s meaning of enlightenment because he is the person who escaped the cave. Thought Leos outstanding movie carrie he has came across some barriers. Whenever he would have an amazing Oscar worthy performance he would never win. That's because the academy are the people who are the ones chained in the cave not believing what is being told to them or shown to them by the one who escaped. Leo is the enlightened one trying to show them why he deserves the Oscar but they don't listen just like the prisoners.

Another example of this is when Leo started to get more involved with climate change and being an activist for it. Leo goes out into the real world and bring to people's attention issues and topics that they don't know about or even heard about. When he shows people these things through platforms like social media, press conferences, and the united nations there are always those who don't believe him and question him. Once again this is another reason why Leo is the enlightened one who escaped from what's made up and actually sees for himself first hand what's happening to us and tries to show others what's happening. In this case the people are the other prisoners that don't believe him are us and the ones who deny that we have a problem to begin with because this new information challenges what they believed in forever.

Leo truly reslebels Platos image of enlightenment because of these examples and many others. Leo’s someone who is always striving to find the truth everything he does and is looking to share his knowledge that he acquires form going out in the world and depicting form what is real and what are just shadows that we think are real. What we have to understand at the end of this all is that Plato’s story can be interpreted in many different ways. What we have to do is ask ourselves if what we see is really true? We should always try to push ourselves to strive for the ultimate end and that is trying to be as much learned as we can. We should also not allow ingnorce to blind us in that quest to become a more learned individual.

In conclusion when we read and try to understand Plao’s texts I believe that in order for us to fully comprehend it we cant let arrogance blind us like the prisoners did when they were being shown life through a different lense. We have to be more like the freed prisoner and take time to adjust to what's new to us in order to the light and reach true enlightenment.