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Plato’s Life Plato was the son of wealthy and influential Athenian parents, Plato began his philosophical career as a student of Socrates. He later developed his own school of philosophy at the academy. When he was 40 years old, he found one of the earliest known organised schools in Western Civilisation on a plot of land in the Grove of Academy. The Academy was a large enclosure of ground which was once the property of a citizen named Academus. Plato was a dualist which means he believed that you have two parts the body and the soul. Plato was an a priori philosopher which means he used his prior knowledge to determine what he thought was the truth.
Plato’s cave (physical world) Prisoners who are empiricists are inside the cave and are chained up far underground and they are chained in such a way that they can only look at the wall ahead. This wall has shadows being reflected on it this is what the prisoners, who are non-philosophers so they don’t question life, believe what life really is and that there is nothing else to it. These shadows which are being projected on the wall from the puppeteers, who represent the government controlling the public not to question the world, are cast from a fire behind a wall on a platform so the puppeteers can reflect there objects. There are also echoes in the cave which represent also what they think life is. The a posteriori prisoners who are inside the contingent, it comes in and out of existence, cave have been here since birth.
The Forms (the non-physical world) Outside is the Forms which is the non-physical soul, the real world, the soul with no body just knowledge. These philosophers are a priori which means they use prior knowledge to determine their view of what is the truth, and innate which means you know things are innately true you were born with the knowledge. This world is necessary it is always in existence. Plato was a dualist who believed the world had 2 realms, the physical which is the cave and the forms which is the real outside world. The sun Is shining down outside in the real world and this symbolises the truth of the real world. When prisoners break out from the physical world to the real world. They find themselves blinded by the reality. When they return with their stories of the outside and tell the other prisoners, the prisoners left in the cave feel anger towards them the escapees when back in the cave they find they cannot cope.
