R.E- PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.(PLATO AND ARISTOTLE REVISON)

Plato analogy of the cave.-A group of people are sitting deep in a cave facing the back wall.

They have been here since chldhood and it is all the know. They are prevented to looking around as the are chained. There is a fire behind them. people with statues on their heads walk pass. Because of the position of the fire, the shadows of passer-by appear on the back of the wall of the cave. the prisoners who sit facing the wall have witness these statues  they take them to be real life.

One prisoner breaks free and makes the slow painful journey out the cave. he first encounters the sun the sun strength id blinding after a while his eyes adjust. He relieases that the sun is the source of life.

The objects outside the cave represent the forms the things in the cave was just an shadow of the real world.He returns to teach the prisoners about the real world of forms but the do not want to believe it and they kill him.

Plato analogy of the cave has many hidden meanings. Firstly that people in society are the people in the cave as the accept the world. they do not question the world they dont know of the world of forms. the prisoners in the cave just accept things at face value they never try to understand the real world of the forms. their lives are a meanless void.

the shadows are not real object, the one that breaks away and makes the journey he is the philosophier. Outside the cave he see the sun which gives everything a purpose- the sun represent the form of the good. the philosohier knows the world in the cave was not the real world.

everyone in the story think they are looking at what is real.

their prisoners are using emprical knowledge- this is knowledge gained through the senses. Plato beleives in priori knowledge this is based on reasoning.