THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE - Plato E-Book

Plato

• Herausgeber: Lebooks Editora
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 18

Beschreibung

The work "The Allegory of the Cave," also known as the Cave Allegory or Cave Parable, is an extremely intelligent allegory with a philosophical and pedagogical intent, written by the Greek philosopher Plato. It is found in the work "The Republic" and aims to exemplify how human beings can free themselves from the condition of darkness that imprisons them through the light of truth. It is a timeless text whose message fits perfectly into contemporary times when sectarian ideologies still permeate many societies. Furthermore, reading "The Allegory of the Cave" allows for a beneficial reflection by rescuing and presenting important philosophical values to readers.

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Plato

THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

From “The Republic”

First Edition

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

INTRODUCTION

Plato

Plato (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens) ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and founder of the Academy, best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence. He is one of the major figures of Classical antiquity.

Building on the demonstration by Socrates that those regarded as experts in ethical matters did not have the understanding necessary for a good human life, Plato introduced the idea that their mistakes were due to their not engaging properly with a class of entities he called forms, chief examples of which were Justice, Beauty, and Equality. Whereas other thinkers — and Plato himself in certain passages — used the term without any precise technical force, Plato in the course of his career came to devote specialized attention to these entities.

As he conceived them, they were accessible not to the senses but to the mind alone, and they were the most important constituents of reality, underlying the existence of the sensible world and giving it what intelligibility, it has. In metaphysics Plato envisioned a systematic, rational treatment of the forms and their interrelations, starting with the most fundamental among them (the Good, or the One); in ethics and moral psychology he developed the view that the good life requires not just a certain kind of knowledge (as Socrates had suggested) but also habituation to healthy emotional responses and therefore harmony between the three parts of the soul (according to Plato, reason, spirit, and appetite).

His works also contain discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology, and the philosophy of language. His school fostered research not just in philosophy narrowly conceived but in a wide range of endeavors that today would be called mathematical or scientific.

The Allegory of the Cave