Compare Plato's Allegory Of The Cave And Unexamined Life Essay

Philosophy - Unexamined and Examined Lives
Philosophy is the search for wisdom and truth. Philosophy is the study of examining and thinking about the knowledge, nature, truth, and meaning of life. Philosophy makes you utilize your sense of logic and reason to help you understand reality. It helps you to be able to have thought-provoking, meaningful conversations about knowledge, life, human nature, and morality. Philosophers try to approach questions by examining their own personal beliefs and then they start to doubt the validity of their own beliefs. One prominent philosopher is Plato. Plato is one of the world’s most widely read and known philosophers. Plato was a student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. Plato made a great impact on the Western thought’s development, on our understanding of nature and reality, and he made a great impact on the knowledge we can have. Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” is one of the best known writings in Philosophy that attempted to answer questions such as “why are we here?” and “what is reality?”. In
“The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato implies that we as human beings rely on our perceptions to know the truth regarding existence instead of taking the time to learn and understand everything that is surrounding us to find the real truth.
The parable, “The Allegory of the Cave”, is about prisoners living in a cave. The darkness of the cave represents how much darkness is hindering the amount of light that shines inside of the cave. There is another world outside of the cave and the cave is putting limitations on those inside of the cave. Plato describes those in the cave as living an “unexamined life”. If Plato were alive today, the kind of analogy that Plato would employ to illustrate people who live unexamined lives would be to not put limitations on yourself and on life in general. The English poet William Blake said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” If we put limitations on ourselves than we aren’t setting ourselves up to be successful and be able to experience life to its fullest. I interpreted the quote, “People who live unexamined lives” as people who do not examine nor want to gain a deeper understanding of life in general. Ones who live an examined life believe that you make your life whole when you ask questions about life, examine life, and reflect on life. Bruce Lee once said, “If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
An example of what the examined life looks like is a person who is constantly evaluating and reflecting on the life that they live and the society they live in because true wisdom comes from questioning the things around you. The person is able to find meaning and purpose within their life. They are also able to motivate themselves and they notice when they are making progress towards their goals in life.
The cave in “The Allegory of the Cave” parable by Plato symbolizes those who can not see an accurate view of reality in the world.
People who live unexamined lives are people who do not examine and reflect on their actions of the past and present. We can best encourage those with unexamined lives to leave the “cave” and start examining their lives by telling them that they are able to bring freedom to their lives by doing so. People who reflect on their experiences in life, whether they are good or bad, tend to be so much happier. They are much happier because those experiences gave them a better understanding of how the different elements of their life fit together, like a puzzle piece. When you examine your life, you are able to sit down and get to know yourself better. When you get to know yourself better, you can decide you want to be in life, set goals, and start to become the person you want to grow up to be in
life.
To begin living the examined life, you must determine the why, determine what will be giving you the fuel to carry on in life, and live a life for yourself instead of living for other people. In order to determine the why you must answer questions from the biggest why, “Why am I here?” or a why that’s as small as “Why do I want a burger instead of a salad?”. We have to understand our motivation for making the decisions that we make every single day. When you have a to make a life-altering decision, make sure you remember to sit back and ask yourself “why?” Even though this may slow down the pacing of the decision making process, you will end up saving yourself from making a decision that might not be the best for you. It will save you time and take away stress that isn’t necessary nor wanted. If we want to determine what will be giving us the fuel to carry on in life, we have to take the time to really get to know ourselves as a person. In order to get to know ourselves, we have to be truthful, loving, and honest with ourselves. Sometimes we might not have a clear perception of ourselves and we need the people who are close to us to help us remind ourselves why we are amazing as well as special. Another way to begin living the examined life is to live a life for ourselves instead of living for others. An example of this would be a person going to college to become a doctor because their parents want them to. They also choose the career path because they believe that they will have more opportunities and it will give them a sense of security being a doctor. This person is living an unexamined life because this person is living a life of others and not for themselves. They haven’t asked themselves “what do I really want?” and they are only doing what is expected from them.
The study of philosophy can assist captives to “leave the cave” because the study of philosophy makes us ask questions and analyze situations in our lives. People who live unexamined lives are people who do not examine nor want to gain a deeper understanding of life. Ones who live an examined life believe that you make your life whole when you ask questions about life, examine life, and reflect on life. Philosophy can help us understand important issues that are going on in our lives. It can help us understand ourselves and others as thinking, acting beings of this world, which can help us live better lives. Philosophy helps us to think logically because it makes us ask questions, analyze, and view arguments from various perspectives. Even though you may not agree with a person’s beliefs and/or argument, philosophy teaches human beings to respect everyone’s opinions and beliefs. Philosophy also teaches us how to approach issues and helps us better our ability to communicate clearly with other human beings.