Republic (Allegory)

So, I'm pretty excited that we are going to focus on the cave this week. Although this reading could be seen as simplistic in some ways, it really has a lot of validity in terms of society and also how one can come to know "truth". The allegory in my view explains how society can formulate our thoughts and what we think to be real "truths" without even knowing it. What we as human beings perceive as truth can be developed through experiences that force us to question our beliefs. The development of our perceptions can be made ( I think) through experiences of things like doubt or a break in habit. Socrates (Plato) talks about our seemingly "ready made" beliefs in the allegory of the cave when he talks about what I view as mental slavery. This whole reading is pretty compelling to me when I really think about it, and its also cool to think that my knowledge and opinions of modern philosophy coincides with Plato so much on the subject of truths and society. When I picture the cave I picture the fire being the "truth" or "reality" because he describes it as being above and behind us. I have read other philosophers that remind me of this subject and have influenced the way I think about people coming to know the "truths" of life. I also kind of feel like my wording of "truth" could also be compared to "reality". I feel like we are so compelled to know "truth" because we as humans are so complex and gaining an understanding of the truth compels us to delve deeper and push a sense of entitlement to the truth until we find it or what we perceive it to be. The world is such a turbulent constant flux of variables and maybe we strive for truth because its like the only constant we seem to think we have, like our rock that we clutch to...