What is truth according to Platos allegory of the cave?

If truth was objective then there would be absolute truth and there shouldn't be any dispute to this viewpoint. Truth should be evident based on fact according to people who believe that truth is objective. 15 However Sophocles had a different view to this and he portrayed this in his play called the 'Antigone'. 16 Creon was the ruler of the cit of Thebes. He wanted to leave the body of Antigone's brother Polyneices out in the open for it to rot and be an example to the people of Thebes, as he believes that it is Thebes that makes human life possible.

However Antigone disagrees and wants to bury her brother in accordance to the will of the gods. And so she does. There is no right or wrong here, just an opposition of opinion on who is right. The truth they believe in is right according to them. Thus proving in this context that truth is more subjective than objective.

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Which is the opposite of what Plato was arguing in the 'allegory of the cave'. In my opinion truth according to Plato is the pursuit of truth. Although there are stages to truth and because within the stages there is a final one doesn't necessarily mean that a person needs to stop chasing this truth.

Therefore in conclusion one could argue that the final stage is in fact endless. Truth is enlightenment and thus it should be the philosopher kings duty to spread this truth around to people and teach them of this truth that he knows.

It could also be argued that we as human beings do not posses the intelligence to understand what truth actually is therefore if we had a greater capacity to imagine, the truth according to us could be different. We are in a sense seeing truth only as we are capable of doing. Maybe Plato wasn't intelligent enough to give a conclusive judgement on truth and maybe none of us are.

But we are able to have our own opinions on what truth is even with our possibly limited capacity. This theory could also be worked around Plato's allegory of the cave. But whilst Plato thought that there were human beings that could advance out of the cave, we could as a human race be stuck in the middle with no one in the history of the earth ever advancing further. In conclusion to my research the judgement I have reached when tackling the question of what is truth according to Plato's allegory of the cave is; that truth is objective and based up on fact according to him.

Although Nietzsche argued that untruth could be better than truth making untruth true to those who benefit from it. Plato's argument overlooks this analysis. The stages Plato outlines in his allegory of the cave each a step closer to sunlight meaning that there is a gradual build up to the truth. This is in a sense can be seen as a 'pursuit'. The truth exists according to Plato however it needs to be fought for and desired. And in order to be able to know to desire it a life changing event or the experience of an epiphany needs to happen. What we see in front of us is what he believes to be only partial truth.

Only once we exit the cave we can see what truth really is. And it is still disputable to whether anyone in the history of the earth really has stepped out of the cave.

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2 "Plato - Allegory of the Cave", Video Clip, [n. d. ], www. Youtube. com, http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=K-Mv1kiqo4s, (accessed 12 January 2011): 1:25-1:38. 3 Plato, "Republic" http://www. math. nus. edu. sg/~matlmc/Allegory_cave. pdf n. d. , (accessed 9 January 2011): 1 4 "Plato - Allegory of the Cave", Video Clip, [n. d. ], www. Youtube. com, http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=K-Mv1kiqo4s, (accessed 12 January 2011): 1:25-1:38. 5 Plato, "Republic" http://www. math. nus. edu.sg/~matlmc/Allegory_cave. pdf n. d. , (accessed 9 January 2011): 7 6 C. D. C. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings: the Argument of Plato's Republic (Princeton N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1988), 51. 7 Ibid. , 51. 8 Nicholas P.

White, A Companion to Plato's Republic (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979). 9 Amir, "Allegory of the Cave - An Interpretation", n. d. http://www. laney. peralta. edu/apps/comm. asp? Q=30570 (accessed 9 January 2011). 10 Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Toronto: Bantham Books, 1981) 11 James Topham, "'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' Review", n.d. http://classiclit. about. com/od/deathofivanilyichlt/fr/aa_ivanilyich. htm (accessed 13 January 2011).

12 A. R. George, The Epic of Gilgamesh: the Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian (London: Penguin Books, 2003) 13 Fredrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, R. J. Hollingdale, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the future Friedrich Nietzsche (London: Penguin, 2003). 14 Plato, "Republic" http://www. math. nus. edu. sg/~matlmc/Allegory_cave. pdf n. d. , (accessed 9 January 2011). 15 Ibid. 16 Sophocles, Antigone (London: Methuen Drama, 2006).