The Allegory of the Cave PDF Download

Author: Plato
Publisher: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 10

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Book Description
The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, was presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a) to compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The allegory is presented after the analogy of the sun (508b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–511e). All three are characterized in relation to dialectic at the end of Books VII and VIII (531d–534e). Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality.

Author: Kathy Morris Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
"Through an evocative narrative autoethnography, the researcher uses Plato's The Allegory of the Cave (trans. 2010) as a vehicle to demonstrate how 4th century B.C.E. philosophy on power structures remains relevant in many systems of schooling. Plato uses the metaphor of the cave to illustrate his belief that authentic knowledge is attained only when humans experience reality in the light of the sun (Plato, trans. 2010). While in the cave, prisoners are held captive by both the physical chains binding them together and their own lack of worldly philosophical enlightenment. Similarly, many parents are held captive by limited experiences that inform their expectations as well as their mistrust of the power structures existing in many systems of schooling. The research uses narrative conversations with two West St. Louis County parents, two South St. Louis City parents and the researcher to illustrate how the themes from Plato's cave continue to be relevant in the 21st century. These evocative stories represent the four phases of life in Plato's cave: imprisonment in the cave, enlightenment through liberation from the cave, journey back to the cave to enlighten prisoners still held captive, and the ultimate decision between staying in the cave of the known or returning to the world of enlightenment. The research suggests parent liberation could be facilitated through application of Mezirow's Transformative Learning Theory"--Page vi.

Author: Arthur Herman
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0553907832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 933

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Book Description
The definitive sequel to New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World is a magisterial account of how the two greatest thinkers of the ancient world, Plato and Aristotle, laid the foundations of Western culture—and how their rivalry shaped the essential features of our culture down to the present day. Plato came from a wealthy, connected Athenian family and lived a comfortable upper-class lifestyle until he met an odd little man named Socrates, who showed him a new world of ideas and ideals. Socrates taught Plato that a man must use reason to attain wisdom, and that the life of a lover of wisdom, a philosopher, was the pinnacle of achievement. Plato dedicated himself to living that ideal and went on to create a school, his famed Academy, to teach others the path to enlightenment through contemplation. However, the same Academy that spread Plato’s teachings also fostered his greatest rival. Born to a family of Greek physicians, Aristotle had learned early on the value of observation and hands-on experience. Rather than rely on pure contemplation, he insisted that the truest path to knowledge is through empirical discovery and exploration of the world around us. Aristotle, Plato’s most brilliant pupil, thus settled on a philosophy very different from his instructor’s and launched a rivalry with profound effects on Western culture. The two men disagreed on the fundamental purpose of the philosophy. For Plato, the image of the cave summed up man’s destined path, emerging from the darkness of material existence to the light of a higher and more spiritual truth. Aristotle thought otherwise. Instead of rising above mundane reality, he insisted, the philosopher’s job is to explain how the real world works, and how we can find our place in it. Aristotle set up a school in Athens to rival Plato’s Academy: the Lyceum. The competition that ensued between the two schools, and between Plato and Aristotle, set the world on an intellectual adventure that lasted through the Middle Ages and Renaissance and that still continues today. From Martin Luther (who named Aristotle the third great enemy of true religion, after the devil and the Pope) to Karl Marx (whose utopian views rival Plato’s), heroes and villains of history have been inspired and incensed by these two master philosophers—but never outside their influence. Accessible, riveting, and eloquently written, The Cave and the Light provides a stunning new perspective on the Western world, certain to open eyes and stir debate. Praise for The Cave and the Light “A sweeping intellectual history viewed through two ancient Greek lenses . . . breezy and enthusiastic but resting on a sturdy rock of research.”—Kirkus Reviews “Examining mathematics, politics, theology, and architecture, the book demonstrates the continuing relevance of the ancient world.”—Publishers Weekly “A fabulous way to understand over two millennia of history, all in one book.”—Library Journal “Entertaining and often illuminating.”—The Wall Street Journal

Author: Mort Rosenblum
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466856432
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Cave Blindness Like Plato's cave-dwellers who only saw inaccurate reflections of reality on the wall, America has been blinded to dangerous realities inside and outside our borders, argues award-winning journalist Mort Rosenblum. Our ignorance is not just deplorable, it is literally killing us—and others. Rosenblum—who has reported from more than one hundred countries, many of which he has outlived—explains how we all can and must learn more about what's really happening in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, in matters of war, peace, business, the environment, and education. This cri de coeur by one of our planet's most eloquent journalists is a must-read for anyone concerned about what they don't see in the newspaper or on TV. Escaping Plato's Cave offers both insight and practical ways for Americans to get out of the cave and see what's really going on around us.

Author: José Saramago
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547537980
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
An unassuming family struggles to keep up with the ruthless pace of progress in “a genuinely brilliant novel” from a Nobel Prize winner (Chicago Tribune). A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta and her husband Marçal in a small village on the outskirts of The Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartments, and offices. Marçal works there as a security guard, and Cipriano drives him to work each day before delivering his own humble pots and jugs. On one such trip, he is told not to make any more deliveries. People prefer plastic, apparently. Unwilling to give up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls. Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds, and Cipriano and Marta set to work—until the order is cancelled and the penniless trio must move from the village into The Center. When mysterious sounds of digging emerge from beneath their new apartment, Cipriano and Marçal investigate; what they find transforms the family’s life, in a novel that is both “irrepressibly funny” (The Christian Science Monitor) and a “triumph” (The Washington Post Book World). “The struggle of the individual against bureaucracy and anonymity is one of the great subjects of modern literature, and Saramago is often matched with Kafka as one of its premier exponents. Apt as the comparison is, it doesn’t convey the warmth and rueful human dimension of novels like Blindness and All the Names. Those qualities are particularly evident in his latest brilliant, dark allegory, which links the encroaching sterility of modern life to the parable of Plato’s cave . . . [a] remarkably generous and eloquent novel.” —Publishers Weekly Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

Author: Rebecca Goldstein
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0307378195
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
Acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics, and science.

Author: Gordan A. Crews
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781799869795
Category : Mass shootings
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"This edited book explores the shifting definitions and implications of mass violence and investigates the premise that the perpetrators' decision regarding their choice of weapon(s) to carry out their planned mass violence is based upon their accessibility to particular weapons. This leads to whether perpetrators of mass violence share similar goals and motivations for their sprees, as well as display commonalities in their direct and indirect warning behaviors"--

Author: Derek DelGaudio
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0593081110
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Truth and lies are two sides of the same coin. But who's flipping it? A thought-provoking and brilliantly entertaining work of nonfiction from one of the world's leading deceivers, the creator and star of the astonishing theater show and forthcoming film In & Of Itself. Derek DelGaudio believed he was a decent, honest man. But when irrefutable evidence to the contrary is found in an old journal, his memories are reawakened and Derek is forced to confront--and try to understand--his role in a significant act of deception from his past. Using his youthful notebook entries as a road map, Derek embarks on a soulful, often funny, sometimes dark journey, retracing the path that led him to a world populated by charlatans, card cheats, and con artists. As stories are peeled away and artifices are revealed, Derek examines the mystery behind his father's vanishing act, the secret he inherited from his mother, the obsession he developed with sleight-of-hand that shaped his future, and the affinity he felt for the professional swindlers who taught him how to deceive others. And once he finds himself working as a crooked dealer in a big-money Hollywood card game, Derek begins to question his own sense of morality, and discovers that even a master of deception can find himself trapped inside an illusion. A M O R A L M A N is a wildly engaging exploration of the fictions we live as truths. It is ultimately a book about the lies we tell ourselves and the realities we manufacture in others.

Author: By Plato
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3736801467
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BCE, concerning the definition of justice, the order and character of the just city-state and the just man. The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it must take place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned". It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city (Kallipolis) ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.

Author: Plató
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781521777817
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, was presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a-520a) to compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The allegory is presented after the analogy of the sun (508b-509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d-511e). All three are characterized in relation to dialectic at the end of Books VII and VIII (531d-534e).Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison; for they know no better life. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was. They discovered the sun, which Plato uses as an analogy for the fire that man cannot see behind. Like the fire that cast light on the walls of the cave, the human condition is forever bound to the impressions that are received through the senses. Even if these interpretations (or, in Kantian terminology, intuitions) are an absurd misrepresentation of reality, we cannot somehow break free from the bonds of our human condition - we cannot free ourselves from phenomenal state just as the prisoners could not free themselves from their chains. If, however, we were to miraculously escape our bondage, we would find a world that we could not understand - the sun is incomprehensible for someone who has never seen it. In other words, we would encounter another "realm", a place incomprehensible because, theoretically, it is the source of a higher reality than the one we have always known; it is the realm of pure Form, pure fact.Socrates remarks that this allegory can be paired with previous writings, namely the analogy of the sun and the analogy of the divided line.