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Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Plato's Allegory Of The Cave
Allegory of the Cave is a dialog between Socrates and Gloucon in The Republic written by Plato. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Socrates depicts a long, dark cave with a small opening that allows a small amount of light to enter. Inside the cave there group of prisoners, who have been in the cave for their entire lives. The prisoners legs and necks are chained to the cave floor so they are unable to move and can only look forward at the cave wall. At the back of the cave there is a fire that they are never able to view. In between the prisoners and the fire there is a low wall with a path behind it, along which people carry pictures, puppets, and statues. These pictures, puppets and statues are all the prisoners are able to see, and the echoes of the puppeteers when they speak are all they are able to hear. Although the prisoners are chained they are still content because all they have ever known are the shadows. None of them have ever seen anything beyond the cave and have no desire to do so. However one prisoner wakes up to find that he is no longer chained to the floor, and is able to leave the cave. Once the prisoner is outside he realizes that the shadows are not real. The prisoner then decides to return to the cave, to free the other prisoners, however reentering the cave would make his eyes have to …show more content…
While one is at Milwaukee School of Engineering there are like the prisoners in the cave, as we are mostly seeing what the professors want to teach us. Professors have more power than we think, as they are mostly in control over what is taught in their courses, similar to the puppeteers in the cave. However the professors are also trying to help us escape the cave and learn to think for ourselves. For a student to escape the cave they must figure out how to do things for
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