Plato's Allegory of the Cave is about “Justified true belief and knowledge” ("Plato's cave analysis.") The Cave seems to represent the known world. The prisoners are individual who are not enlightened or unable to see other ways of reasoning. They are prisoners of there own ignorance, as they have never been exposed to other reasoning, and ideas. All they know is what is right before them. They are unable to move their heads as their necks are bound. This can mean that they are trapped in their own comfortable ways of thinking, and cannot see passed what they have always established as true. The shadows on the wall is all they see. As individuals in real life only believe what their eyes show them. They refuse to see other possibilities as it is not something they can see right in front of them.
Making the statement that if one does not see it they are unaware of anything else. Yet once one of these prisoners are released, and shown the reality, that his little world is way bigger then what he thought it was, his reaction is likely to very. This is representation of what an individual does with education, and knowledge. Do they accept it, or rebel against it? In this particular case, the free prisoner is accepting to the new knowledge, and pities his fellow prisoners that have not been enlightened.
Once returned, and explaining all his knowledge the rest of the prisoners, they are likely to laugh at him. Showing that when people are not enlightened, and cannot understand something, they put it down, and cannot even try to believe it. If the cave represents the world as many know it, then it shows that many are unaware of so many discoveries, and realities, and they are prisoners of their own ignorance. They are forever going to believe in the shadows which were not formed from reason but were merely images that are believed because they can see it.
In examining Republic Book X by Plato it is understood that Socrates felt that in a perfect society there should not be poets, and artist or how he likes to call them imitators. “ Imitation is surely far from the truth: and as it seems, it is due to this that it produce everything-because it lays hold of a certain small part of each thing, and that part is itself only a phantom.” (Book X) artist, and poets or imitators can create emotions in individuals that are false. Such as the death of characters. They are not real, but the emotion that a person feels from experiencing said character's death is real. According to the Republic Book X this is something that is not good. In a world where this takes place it is believed that individuals would be controlled by their own emotions rather then logical thinking. This is why poets, and artist should not be in this world. In other words, rational, and logical thought according to Socrates in Republic Book X is more important then emotions. Emotions may lead to destruction.
According to Socrates a perfect word would be an he emotionless world without art. A world that creates true science and prosperity without the complications of irrational emotion filled art. To focus on what is real, and not what one can create that may seem real. The imitation of life is not life worth exploring. One should focus on reality in order to truly prosper.
The influence of art is corruption of the soul. According to Socrates the soul is immortal, art, and poetry should be banned so it does not corrupt the soul, and effluence the soul's afterlife. In short in Socrates's perfect society. Life should, and will be full of knowledge, while lack art because of the corrupt properties on both the immortal human soul, and the influences on rational scientific thought. Science and philosophy is welcome as it focus on real life while the imitation of life through art, and imagination is not welcome. As they have no positive influence on life.
“The Allegory of the Cave.” TheHuman Experience: Who Am I?. Ed.
Winthrop University. 6th ed. Littleton, MA: Tapestry, 2009. 3-6. Print.
Plato. Republic. Books I, II, IV and "The Myth of the Cave: From Book VII." Morality and the Good Life: An Introduction to Ethics through the Classical Sources. 5th ed. Eds. Robert C. Solomon, Clancy W. Martin, and Wayne Vaught. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 81-104.
"Plato's cave analysis." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Sept. 2013.