Plato's Republic book 7 | The Allegory of the Cave | Philosophy Core Concepts

This is a video in my new Core Concepts series -- designed to provide students and lifelong learners a brief discussion focused on one main concept from a classic philosophical text and thinker.

This Core Concept video focuses on Plato's work, The Republic and specifically on his famous Allegory of the Cave set out early in book 7. In this allegory, prisoners are confined within an underground dwelling, and believe that reality is the images and sounds projected in front of them. One of the prisoners is freed of his chains and brought up into the sunlit world above. After habituation, he becomes able to fully use his power of sight to see real things, the heavens, and the sun that illuminates them.

The allegory is a story about what genuine education would be. Plato rejects the notion of education as simply providing information or filling students' heads with knowledge. Instead, education involves rising above a world of material things, which are only shadows or images of the truer realities, the immaterial Forms. Through developing our minds, we become able to grasp these invisible Forms, and the Form of the Good that is the cause of all things.

My videos are used by students, lifelong learners, other professors, and professionals to learn more about topics, texts, and thinkers in philosophy, religious studies, literature, social-political theory, critical thinking, and communications. These include college and university classes, British A-levels preparation, and Indian civil service (IAS) examination preparation

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#Plato #philosophy #justice #lecture #ancientphilosophy #socrates #ethics #metaphysics #republic #politics

[ammaralado]

thanks for this very nice presentation, and for emphasizing the importance of teaching the theory of forms in schools. I am not a philosopher, but I happened to write a book about the theory of mind and I mentioned the importance of Plato ' s theory.
the name of the book is
the social brain, an operator ' manual. Muhammad Al-Ado
I never presented it to any philosopher yet.
thanks again.

[MacGatesStudio]

You did so well explaining this, thank you so much.

[RobertF-]

This made me start to really look into Plato's work. Very interesting. Thanks

[albertsnotes]

It helps me a lot to understand Book 7 of Plato, the Republic. Thanks!

[alyssamiles]

This was so great, thank you for your help!!!

[jayantkumar]

Thanks for this video, helps to understand the concept more efficiently.

[ambita]

Thanks for the breakdown of Plato's work

[LeeFerikson]

Oh shit this is such a good explanation of this. Damn.

[Anna-mwcp]

your videos are wonderful, thank you(:

[dutes]

Do i understand it correctly if i say it is kinda like the matrix? Neo lives in the cave(matrix). He is not living in reality but in a computer simulated world. Then he comes in contact with Morpheus who gets him out of the matrix and he understands that he has been living in a computer simulated world and now sees reality as it is.

[MrMoarMadness]

Really enjoying your lectures! Keep up the great work :)

[frroossst]

Using your videos to study for my philosophy midterm, as a comp sci student who has only taken technical classes, philosophy comes off as interesting but as extremely difficult for me when it comes to writing answers and essays. Thanks!

[_eo]

Soo helpful! Please contnue, thanks👌🙏

[rude_broccoli]

I think there is one more untouched dimension here, namely the connection of the allegory with the concept of hard solipsism. What do you think?

[faithoneilll]

Who is speaking? Who are the people engaged in dialogue in this text?

[brandonludwig]

Some would say…. Educavetion… am I right?

[licandres]

To me it sounds like enlightenment, and like the conception of God as the single being that is the universe and every part of it is that single consciousness experiencing itself, Advaita Vedanta type of stuff.

[uniphcommunity.thewhitetower]

Awesome tutorial! If we make the assumption that someone who gets free from his chains never gets out of his own cave without being able to experience the intelligible world, could we also say that he has just moved to his second "mode of knowledge", which is "the formulation of his own opinions and beliefs" (Pistis)? This might also be the case since once he is liberated from his own chains, he discovers the fire (as a real visible object) burning and has his first explanation of the image of the fire cast on the cave wall in the form of a shadow...and all of these thoughts of his are still taking place in the realm of the material world !!