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Lesson from Plato: Preferring truth or reality over ignorance 2013-09-05 - Adair County, KY - Photo by Shamarie Claiborne. Plato's Republic is a collection of different stories. This picture brought to mind one of the stories called "The Allegory in the Cave" (a simple idea made as complicated as possible). Plato wanted people to decide if the things we see and know are truly what we think they are or are they just a partial reflection of reality. Plato uses the idea of a shadow to represent what we see when actually the true object looks totally different. In this case it is an old oil lantern. The shadow is only a reflection of the true object and in reality it is only a fraction of the true object. His point was: One should always look for, search for, and prefer the truth or reality over ignorance. I think the shadow is just as pretty, yet different from the real lantern. I guess sometimes ignorance can be bliss and beautiful in its own way. In the end everyone must decide for themselves what they want their reality to be based on --- shadows or the real thing. For me the shadows are just as important as the real things because when you see the real thing you can appreciate it even more. Permalink | Comments?

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