Plato's Allegory

Plato's Allegory of the Cave-What is it? To recap, Plato was a philosopher and student under Socrates. He witnessed the trial of Socrates and wrote down the events of it in a book called Apologie. This book describes how Socrates defended himself in the trial which he failed to successfully do. Socrates's arguments were that he did not do anything wrong and that he should be fed for life. Plato's other, and I believe only other, book is Republic. Now onto the allegory. The word allegory is a story or poem that contains a hidden message or meaning. In Plato's allegory he starts out with three men who have been chained up since birth to face this wall of a cave (Remember this is a made up story.) The cave also had a fire which cast shadows as objects and people went by. One day one of the men breaks free and goes out into the light which blinds him as Mr. Schick compared to that blindness you experience when you exist a movie theater. Then the man sees everything and their shadows. He then goes back to the other two men in the cave and tells them what they're missing out on. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Romans vs. Carthaginians

Today we began by finishing up the Amendments to the Constitution. We discussed the eighth amendment which dealt with the right to privacy. we continued with notes on the Romans and Carthaginians. There were three wars fought between the Romans and Carthaginians from 246-146 BC known as the Punic Wars. The Roman legions consisted of five thousand soldiers. The Roman army had heavy elite infantries. There were groups of eighty soldiers in groups called centuries which were very similar to the Greek phalanx. The first Punic War was fought from 264 to 241 BC. The war consisted of naval battles for control of the strategically located island of Sicily. The Romans were victorious in this war. Then the Carthaginian empire strikes back. The second Punic War was fought from 218 to 201 BC. The twenty nine year old Carthaginian general known by the name of Hannibal almost does the impossible and defeats Rome with a well thought out strategy. There is a good reason of why this war was the longes
Read more

Chi Cago's Guide to Ancient Rome

Etruscans came from north-central part of the peninsula metalworkers, artists, architects two foundation myths: Virgil’s Aeneid (where Aeneas escapes from Troy - sound familiar?) the story of Remus and Romulus Greeks they had many colonies around the Mediterranean Sea Romans borrowed ideas from them, such as: religious beliefs alphabet much of their art military techniques and weaponry the Latins! descendants of Indo-Europeans settled on the banks of the Tiber situated so trading ships - but not war fleets - could navigate as far as Rome, but no further a commercial port, but not susceptible to attack and... built on seven hills (esp. Palatine) many streams flowed into the Tiber there was a marshy area called the Forum,  between Palatine and Capitoline Hills Tarquin the Proud’s grandfather built the Cloaca Maxima (largest ancient drain), which channeled water into the Tiber urban legend says Washington DC was built on a swamp - but only abo
Read more

Ancient Rome Test

The test turned out to be open-blog. I believe I missed only one question which was number 18. The question dealt with how long did a consul have to wait before running again for office. Overall the test was a success. 
Read more