Philosophy 201

So the ideal of ‘being good’ brings forth good in your surrounding environment? As in beauty in the visible world as well as humanity in those around you? Hope I’m understanding this…

This makes me think of what I find to be the typical response to issues such as hunger, ethnic cleansing, or diseases that plague 3rd world countries: Everyone knows its going on but the blinders are up and with that, we can continue to ignore it.

This reminds me of an essay I read years ago in Western Civ. but when I googled it I only came up with Edward Burkes’ ‘Rights of Man’ essay which I don’t think is correct.

So, people who learn by doing (use of 5 senses/experience) are really only acquiring a shadow of truth? If the world above is inhabited by forms, which are external, unchanging and unchangeable essences of things that exist in a world beyond human experience; and these things can be gotten to only through reason, then people who do not reason never know the truth or attain real knowledge? And therefore their education is only a shadow of truth as well?

How would he be able to look at the sun and just know that it gives us seasons and determines days, weeks, months? How do people know things like that? I would just look at it and think “There’s a big ball in sky that gives off heat and light.” I could understand that it provides the course of the day, because upon it rising, we have light and when it sets, dark. The rest…?

I am reminded of a ventriloquist and his puppet. It appears as though the doll is talking, when in reality it is the ventriloquist.

Interesting. The idea that to live in opulence yet darkness (ignorance) would be less desirable than to live in squalor but light (enlightenment). For some odd reason, I feel like I see people choosing the former option. Celebraties come to mind.

Here’s a funny thought. Plato implies that all the prisoners know of the world is what has been given to them in the form of shadows and echoes. Why would the newly unfettered prisoner reason to believe that there should be objects to be seen at all when he/she turns around?

Here is where I got the idea that the prisoners were naming the shadows and not the objects.

This is just a test. I think I figured it out.
I didn’t think to scroll all the way to the bottom.

T.S. Eliot
After all our explorations, they will come home and know the place for the first time.

some one important once said that “people often see what they believe, rather than what appears before their eyes.” In this case they could only see part of the picture and named what they could. We rarely have or can see the entire picture.

In time the new things and around a person become clearer and clearer. Some things are easier to see/understand than others.

Perception is everything they say.

I suppose that if one were to believe that our own perceptions were similar to fettered people lying about watching the shadow’s from a pseudo-psychotic puppet show than I would totally agree with you Melissa. My conclusion for this particular argument is that while interesting to suppose that what I’m sitting on is actually the shadow of the genuine article I tend to maintain a very solid belief that what I am planting my derrier on is quite believably the “genuine” article, having tried to sit on a shadow before.

@MelissaGoff: What do you mean by repression? Something like Freud’s idea of repression?

Clearly, Russell, you are right.

Exactly, Melissa!

is this to mean that the harmonizing or balancing is, “For the Greater Good?”

they should not hoard all their new knowledge, goodness, but rather take it back down to those without the truth, and share it.

Oddly, this paragraph says to me, “fasting helps us find the truth, but human pleasures like food take us away from it.

is it better to find the truth, or better to remain ignorant?

I definately agree that the “prisoners” would find it hard to believe what they saw. After being accustomed to naming and recognizing the shadows, they would probably have more faith in the reality of the shadows rather than the apparent objects seen with their own eyes.

i agree with this statement.

and that now the person is finally open and receptive to “seeing.”

for some reason this paragraph says to me, “Nature is Truth.”

it is not a good idea to force someone to “see,” as they will not “see” it until they are ready.

when set free of our ignorance, we are scared of the truth, and for a time, we cling to that which we know and have always understood to be true.

they do not know the truth of themselves–yet.

humans see what they think is the truth, but what they see is really a shadow of the “genuine article.”

ignorance/repression

my responses to the following paragraphs may be just a few words or maybe a sentence, but in each case will be my own translation of each, and hopefully, i won’t miss the point on (m) any of them.

This makes me think of why people, including me, are sometimes so afraid of change. We do certain things, certain ways for so long that it is hard to imagine anything different. Once it is different, it doesn’t become “real” until we have accepted the change as routine.

This is where it seems the conversation begins to split into two conversations: one about the coming to see the light, the other about practicing the theory in real life.

Wow. What a way to see people…it reminds me of the songs and stores that ask us to look at others as an angel in disguise, or be wary of treating others with scorn, becasue they could be your maker.

I am of the belief system that our lives are all about perspective…one can ask ten or tenthousand different people to describe the same thing, and would end up with ten or ten thousand different descriptions. And our emotions play a part as well. If today I would weep and tommorow I would laugh at the same situation, which perspective would be true?

Throughout this reading, Jowett translates the Greek anthropos and its derivative forms as “man.” While this was appropriate for his time (19th century), we now use “person,” “human,” or some other gender-neutral term. I have made changes accordingly, along with similar changes in some pronouns.

This section of The Republic is often referred to as the “Allegory of the Cave.” In many ways, the ideas presented here are central to all Western philosophical thought.