Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

Appearances Can Be Deceiving• How Do We Determine Truth?• The question of all philosophy!• A very basic understanding:• Is it logical? Does it make sense?• Is it factual? Is it a fact?• Is it practical? Can you live it?

• Appearances vs. Reality• What is real and what is not?

• Tricksters • Humorous, tricky characters who make

mischief• BIG QUESTIONS FOR A UNIT!

Gwendolyn Brooks' "Truth"

Crash Course in Philosophy• Plato – ancient Greece; Abstract ideas over material

forms; truth lies in the ideas• Descartes – 1600s France “I think, therefore I am”; Truth

can be found through a logical formula • The Empiricists (Locke, Hume) early 1700s Britain;

sensory evidence; true can be found through experience w/the world• Kant – late 1700s Germany; reality depends on our mind;

We inherently know truth and what is right and wrong.• Sartre – mid 1900s France; the absurd; we make our own

truth

Allegory• Definition: a story, poem,

or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a religious, moral or political one.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDaSgyi3xE • Questions• What is an allegory?• Would you want to be released from the cave? Why or why not?• What is like the cave in our world?• How is the way you understand the world, your ideas and beliefs, shaped

by the actions of others?• Who has the power to shape your ideas and beliefs? In what ways is this

good and in what ways is it not so good?• Are there things you know to be true? What are they, and how do you

know them?• What is Plato trying to tell us in the allegory?

Connection: The Matrix• Based on Plato’s allegory• humans trapped in the Matrix = the people in the cave • They see only what the machines want them to see, but they

believe they see reality as it really is.• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7BuQFUhsRM • Questions• What is the deal that Cypher makes with the agent? • Cypher chooses to leave the resistance and go back to the Matrix.

He doesn’t want to live the truth anymore, because it is too ugly and painful. He decides that he prefers the pleasurable lies of the Matrix. What’s wrong with the Matrix, if what we feel is pleasurable?

• Cypher concludes that it is better in some ways to live in the Matrix than to see things as they really are. Is he wrong?

The Experience Machine• 1971 Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick• Gives you any experience you desired• Neuropsychologists stimulate your brain so you think and feel whatever you

want • floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain• you believe the dream is reality • Questions• Should you hook up to the experience machine for life, pre-programming all of

your life’s desires? Why or why not?• Would it make any difference to you if you were actually doing these things?• If in every respect it seems to you that you’re in a good situation, isn’t it true

that you are in a good situation?• Do we care about certain things independent of the experiences they create for

us? For example, is being in reality important, even if the experience isn’t pleasant? Is it better to live happily in the Matrix than miserably in reality? Why or why not?

• How do we know that we are not in an experience machine right now? Can we prove we are not? How do we know that what we perceive is real?

Independent and Subordinate Clauses

• Independent• Can stand

alone• Subordinate

(dependent)• Can’t stand

alone

Unless the rain stops soon, mudslides will engulf these hillside villas.Unless the rain stops soon, mudslides will engulf these hillside villas.Brian asked that he be excused. Brian asked that he be excused. The woman to whom I introduced you teaches Latin. The woman to whom I introduced you teaches Latin.

Adjective Clauses

• Def: Subordinate (Dependent) Clause that modifies a noun• Key words to look for: • that, which, who, whom, whose• Or a relative adverb: before, since, when,

where, why

TOD:

1. pick out the subordinate clause A. The luxury of baths, which we have come to

associate with Rome, was imported from the East.

B. The earliest Roman literature, which contained translations from Greek classics, was based on Greek models

2. Who wrote “Allegory of the Cave”?3. Questions/CommentsHW: W&G pg. 323-328 ex. 29&31