“ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE BY PLATO: HOW IT CHANGED MY THINKING”

Introduction
In the field of politics many political thinker have shared their political thoughts which had
influence both the traditional and modern politics. But its foundations were laid by Plato and
Aristotle as stated by (Taylor, 2006). There are various classical political thinker who have
imparted their philosophy in the society and changed many people way of thinking but the one
who really capture my mind and influenced my way of thinking is Plato. Plato (428/427 BC) was
an ancient Greek philosopher, students of Socrates and founder of the Academy. In his work
Republic (375 BCE), he present an allegory called “Allegory of the cave” and it challenge me to
look beyond the things we see around us, know the reality of the world by searching for truth
and knowledge, and help other people thorugh our gained knowledge.The “allegory of the cave”
is a masterpiece Allegory by Plato which narrates about the ignorant prisoner who believe in the
things they see infront of them as reality not knowing the truth of the real world, which only
through knowledge we can know the truth of the real world.

Looking Beyond
The allegory of the cave by plato was very inspirational and mind changing agent for me
because according to plato (428/427 BC) in his work Republic (375 BCE) on allegory of the
cave, there are chained prisoner inside the cave who were facing the wall and behind the
prisoners is a fire and between the fire and prisoners are people. These people would carry
objects and because of the fire it cast the shadow of the object on the wall. Seeing the shadow
of the objects, prisoner would believe this to be the reality as they have never seen the real
objects, the prisoner only believe in what they see infront of them rather than looking beyond the
shadow. Before I read the “allegory of the cave” by Plato I also believed in what I see infront of
me without looking beyond but as I study “allegory of the cave” something began to dawn on me
and I realizes that the things we see infront of us can sometimes might not be true.
Additionaly, the allegory of the cave changed my thinking, before I used to belive in what I
see infront of me but after the understading the allegory of the cave I started looking beyond the
things I see infront of me bacause everything we see cannot always be true and we should
always look beyond the things. For example, in my past while I was travelling in the bus, one
person approach me and asked me to lend some of my cash because his banking app was
having some technical issue and he promisde me to give back after his banking app technical
issue was solved. I easily believed him because he seemed to be nice person but after
sometime when we reached our destination he neither seem to talk me about returining the
money and I also didn’t feel comfortable to ask for the money. So, sometime it is important to
look beyond the things and to know the reality it is important to search for knowledge and truth.
Searching Knowledge
One of the things that plato change my way of thinking is on knowledge. According to Plato
(428/427 BC) knowledge is not just a matter of perception or belief rather it involves a deep
understanding of the nature of reality. From the allegory of the cave by plato it inspires me to
gained more knowledge about the world. According to plato in allegory of the cave, one of the
prisoners realizes that there are real things, what plato calls the forms, that exist outside of the
shadow world and the prisoner go outside the cave in search for the knowledge of truth. As the
prisoner experience the real world and know the reality, he gained the knowledge that what he
was seeing in the cave was fake world and through this knowledge he was able to see the truth.
Through this allegory it changed my way of thinking towards knowledge. Before I did not care
much about gaining knowledge because I was not able to see the true value of knowledge until I
study allegory of the cave.
In continuation, plato work on allegory of cave gave me an inspiration to gain more
knowledge because through knowledge people are able to distingish betweern false and truth.
Not only does knowledge help people in finding the truth but also it show people the reality of
the world. Plato work also made me rethink the importance of having more knowledge over
people with less knowledge because people with more knowledge tend to have high maturity
and know much about the reality of the world than most other people. Moreover, it is important
to share and help other people through our gained knowledge to show them the reality and
improve the condiyion of the world.
Sharing the Knowledge
In the allegory of the cave, the prisoner who gained the knowledge about the real world
come back to the cave to share his knowledge about the outside world to other prisoners. So
that they can also know the reality of the world. Plato further expalined that the other prisoner
does not listen because they have not seen the reality and does not have knowledge about the
real world. It changed my way of thinking on knowledge sharing as before I really do not like to
share my knowledge to others because it make no differeces how much I share it with other
people. Not only that I did not see any advantages of sharing knowledge to other people.
However, after the work on allegory of cave by plato it changed my thinking because his
work show that it is important to share our knowledge to others even if they don’t understand
because someday they will understand and know the reality of the world and when people know
and get the knowledge of reality it will change the world.Therefore, it is important to share our
knowledge with people and show them the reality to make a world better place for people to live
in peace and harmony.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Plato and his work on “Allegory of th cave” really changed and shape my way
of thinking. Plato challenged me to look beyond the things and not to believe easily in the things
we see. Not only that, it made me rethink the importance of having and searching knowledge as
knowledge helps people to know the reality but also Plato inspire me to share knowledge to
other people so that people can also know the reality and make a world better place for people
to live. Therefore, Plato really changed my way of thinking and made me realize the importance
of knowing the reality and how knowledge is the key to know the reality of the world.
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