Plato's Allegory of the Cave

What do the shadows on the cave wall represent for the prisoners?

• Qualities

• Humanity's fear

• The dead

• Sub-atomic particles

• Physical objects and reality

What do the objects outside the cave represent?

• Qualities

• Beauty

• Atoms/molecules

• Forms/reality

• Philosophers

What do the objects outside the cave represent?

• Qualities

• Beauty

• Atoms/molecules

• Forms/reality

• Philosophers

What does the sun represent outside the cave?

• The form of yellow

• The unseen law of nature

• The Good

• The Philosopher King

• Nothing, or it represents itself

When someone enlightened returns to the cave, Plato says he/she will be:

• Unsteady and confused about cave life

• Angry with those in the cave

• Desirous to return to the world above

• Both a and b

• Both a and c

The Allegory states that a man’s eyes will be confused in two ways with a change from light to dark and dark to light. Eventually, man will recognize that the same thing happens to…

• One's life

• One's soul

• One’s conversations between loved ones

• One’s experiences with explorations

• One’s experiences with justice

Socrates tells his student, Glaucon, “…that a state can never be properly governed either by the uneducated who know nothing of the _______ or by men who are allowed to spend all their days in pursuit of culture.”

• Cave

• Bureaucratic process

• Beauty of nature

• Truth

• One’s experiences with justice

We learn from Plato’s Allegory that law is not intended for one special group, but to ensure that…

• The law affects the “whole”

• The law affects an “individual”

• only those raised in political environments are able to rule

• That the law has an effect on the corrupt in power

• People can go his/her own way

Plato’s allegory show us: “The true life of philosophy is the only one that looks down upon offices of state; and access to power must be confined to men who are________."

• Scholarly

• Obsessed with power

• Starved for happiness

• Not in love with offices of state

• Good at keeping society comforted while in caves

The Allegory of the Cave was written by...

• Plato
• Socrates
• Sartre
• Descartes