PLATO: The simile of the cave.

Platos Cave is used as a simile to compare the lack of education and the "ignorance of our human condition". It is written as a conversation between Plato's brother and Plato's mentor. In the simile there are prisoners held in a cave only able to see shadows from men with props and only able to hear the odd conversation. But if the shadows the prisoners can see are the only things they can see, is that the whole and only truth?

If one was to be freed and reveal the truth of what they can see, would they believe him? It would take time to adjust and accept the new truth, to change his beliefs. Once he had accepted this new truth and were to return to the cave and tell others that life as they know it is a lie, that the things they know were not true they had been manipulated. Would they believe him?

Plato compares the freed prisoner to a philosopher with a deeper understanding of a subject, with a truer understanding of reality. Plato questions whether the prisoner would be a leader amongst the other prisoners when he returns, but due to his new knowledge that the other prisoners believe to be a lie he would be seen as corrupted by this other world he had been to.

Nor the freed prisoner or the other prisoners could convince one an other that the world either of them know if truer than the other world as it is subjective to the person holding the knowledge. The only way this could be resolved is if there was an understanding form both points of view, acquiring new knowledge and never knowing the new knowledge, however this is not possible therefor there will be a continuous conflict.

Platos simile of the cave can be seen in a way within our society. Information is given to us form education to politics to the media but is this the whole and true truth or is this a screened and manipulated truth, that when questioned is shot down due to the lack of understanding from both views.