The main concept of Plato’s cave allegory is to describe the human condition, in which genuine truth is veiled and misleading pictures and information are mistaken for reality. Plato describes the narrative of a person who is led down the Gnostic road in the allegory. This allegory depicts the state of human nature: people exist in a cave with erroneous perceptions of reality that we’ve been fed since childhood, including prejudiced beliefs. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that the current perceptions are imperfect.
In the dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon written by Plato, it is emphasized that the perception of reality by a human is limited to what can be perceived. The part of the reality that can be seen and understood by people is limited, and therefore reality is much wider. As mentioned in the text, “The prison is the world of sight, the light of the fire in the sun” (Kraut). Therefore, in these conditions, even simple things such as the sun can be misapprehended, as the sight of a people is limited to seeing only the fire, which appears to be the sun.
This challenges the assumptions regarding reality, as the understanding of it becomes interfered with environmental factors. As in the modern world, there is information available related to every possible topic, it starts to seem that there are no places that human sight does not encompass. Nevertheless, the allegory proves the opposite, as the factors of misinformation and the impossibility to percept objects out of sight are present (Murphy). This is relevant to the contemporary world as well, as there are still many arguments regarding social, political, and scientific areas of life.
Works Cited
Kraut, Richard, “Plato.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022.
Murphy, Darryl J. Gateway to Philosophy. 11th Dimension Press, 2016.