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Plato's Form

Plato’s theory of knowledge and form are expressed with three approaches: his allegory of The Cave, his metaphor of the Divided Line and his doctrine The Forms. Each theory is interconnected; one could not be without the other.
In The Cave, Plato describes a vision of shackled prisoners seated in a dark cave facing the wall. Chained also by their necks, the prisoners can only look forward and see only shadows. These shadows are produced by men, with shapes of objects or men, walking in front of a fire behind the prisoners. Plato states that for the prisoners, reality is only the mere shadows thrown onto the wall. Another vision is releasing a prisoner from his chains, how his movements are difficult, his eye adjustment painful and suggestions of the effects of returning to the cave. The Cave suggests to us that Plato saw most of humanity living in “the cave”, in the dark, and that the vision of knowledge and the “conversion” to that knowledge was salvation from darkness. ...

Posted by: Rebecca Wyant

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