hrough images and its assumptions about them. The fourth section is where the soul takes these images and reasons things out. Objects are now used to determine reason instead it is ideas.Plato makes another example called Allegory of the Cave, which is a copy of the reality of the divided line. People can think and speak without being aware of forms, Plato treats these people as if they were prisoners in a cave who are unable to turn their heads. They can see the wall of the cave but not the fire behind them. The prisoners are unable to see the objects behind them, they can only see and hear the shadows and echoes of that which is behind them. Thus, these prisoners would mistake appearance for reality, they would think the shadows to be real but be unaware of their causes. The shadow would be the only thing they have to relate to the object producing the shadow, the shadow would be their reality of the object. The example of the cave proves that we name things we can not see but things that we can grasp in our minds. Once the prisoners are set free they can see the true nature of the shadows and see their error. The only way for them to see the cause of the shadows is by grasping the forms with their minds. The prisoners, now free, ascend upward through the cave. The higher they get the closer they are to the intellectual world.As they exit the cave the light hurts their eyes because they are not used to it, this may make them want to return back into the cave, away from the intellectual world. Once the prisoners adjust they are able to see the objects for what they really are. Descartes also believed that we must look for an object’s uniqueness without relying on sense-perception. The views of Plato and Descartes are in many ways similar and also in many ways different. According to Plato we see shadows and not the real objects. To be a philosopher one must strive to see the object and what makes that object uniq...
