Term Paper on "Plato -- Meno/Allegory of the Cave"

Term Paper 5 pages (1450 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Plato -- Meno/Allegory of the Cave

Plato's Meno is a dialogue between Meno and Socrates. Meno and Socrates are discussing the nature of virtue and Meno questions Socrates, asking him whether or not virtue can be taught, acquired by practice, or whether virtue is acquired in some other way. Socrates believes that virtue is not possible to define and this throws Meno for a loop. He now too begins to doubt virtue. Socrates later states that knowledge can be taught, so he believes that anything that can be known can be taught and thus knowledge can be acquired through teaching. Knowledge can be a virtue as can wisdom and he Socrates that if virtue is good, and if knowledge is comprised of good things, then virtue is knowledge -- or at least a part of knowledge. If virtue is something that is a quality of our soul's and if virtue is something that works to our advantage, then wisdom has got to be included because if it were used in a less than appropriate way it would be bad for our well-being. However, there is still some discrepancy because Socrates is not able to state definitively that virtue is knowledge or that knowledge is virtue. If virtue is knowledge and it can be taught, then there have to be teachers who can teach it. So this would mean that virtue can indeed be taught. Yet, it wisdom is something that cannot be taught, then it is neither wisdom nor knowledge. Socrates therefore finds that virtue is not something that we are born with, nor is it something that we can acquire. He claims that it is something that is given to us by God.

The biggest part of the dialogue between Meno and Socrates is about whether or not virtue can really be defined and whether or not virtue can be learned or taught. They repeatedly wonder if knowledge and virtue are the same thing. Does a person have to understand what good is in order to be a virtuous person? And if virtue is knowledge, then why do people who claim to have knowledge not always behave in the most virtuous ways?

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from the Republic, possesses some of the most controversial themes regarding human existence. Plato's cave is home to prisoners who are chained inside and forced to look at the front wall of the cave where shadows dance on the wall. The allegory encompasses the metaphor of the prisoners and the philosophical doctrine that the story represents. Plato, in a sense, sees human beings as prisoners and their existences confined to prisons that they create (the cave). The prisoners watch shadows dance on the walls and they don't seem to have any interest in what is causing those shadows and they don't try to escape from the chains that bind them so that they can see for themselves what is going on. If the prisoners were to dare to escape, they would see the sun and they would then realize the truth about what they were seeing.

The point of Plato's allegory is to represent a sort of comprehensive metaphor that contrasts how human beings perceive and what they believe reality to be. Plato's idea of the "divided line" -- where there is a division between what is illusion and what is reason -- changed Western philosophy. The allegory shows that to accept an example of something in place of a real definition is to accept a shadow as a real object. Breaking free of what society tells us is "good" and finding "the good" for ourselves (the "absolute" good) is essential for leading a truthful life. This means that the desires of some people interfere with the desires of others and this, ultimately, leads to a chaotic society. However, Plato's idea of the Guardians who can attain a higher level of knowledge, becoming philosophers, and then going on to become kings (leaders) is something that we can still use today to better our society.

Plato attempts to inform the reader about the distinctions between Goodness itself and the many forms in which people can see it (e.g. its appearances). In the quest for the absolute good that is shared by many good things, people become concerned with the general problem of how to find the one trait… READ MORE

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