Plato's Analogy of the cave Flashcards
Understand fully the story of Plato's analogy of the cave
Why couldn’t the people in the cave move/leave?
They were chained up.
What did the prisoners see on the wall of the cave?
Shadows of reality from the fire at the back of the cave.
Why couldn’t the escapee see when he got out of the cave?
His eyes had to adjust to the light of the outside world.
What did the escapee see when his eyes had adjusted to the outside world?
He saw the true forms of the shadows he had seen in the cave wall.
Why did the escapee return back into the cave from the outside world?
He wanted to go tell the prisoners about what he had learnt about true reality.
Why did the escapee fall and injure himself when he was returning to the prisoners?
His eyes could not re-adjust to the darkness of the cave after he had been in the outside world..
What did the prisoners do to the escapee when he had returned to the cave and why did they do this?
They beat and killed him because they didn’t want to believe what he had seen and change the way they lived.
