In "The Allegory of the Cave," Plato used his philosophy to tell a parable. There are human beings living in a cave since they were children. They are chained, so they can't move and can only face the wall in front of them. Behind the wall, people and animals walk through. Thus, in their lives, all they see are shadows of puppets reflected on the wall between a fire above and behind them in the cave. "To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images." Perhaps one day a prisoner is released, he get out of the cave and is able to see the real world. When he tries to tell his fellows about what he has discover behind the wall, his fellows don't recognize and understand him, all they can see is his shadow on the wall. Now he sees himself, the sun and the nature world. He gains knowledge in the visible world. He is glad for the change of himself and feels sorry of his fellow-prisoners. But if suddenly he goes back to the prison again , his eyes will fill of darkness, his fellow will not believe what he says. He can't even think of getting out of the cave again because he will be kill if he wants to try.
In this parable, "the prison house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun." Socrates concludes that we have to judge our vision to reach the soul into the intellectual world to discover the universe. There is always right or wrong, God knows. As human beings, we have to always look for the nature, beauty of the reality world with our effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment