Compare and Contrast Plato and Decsartes Essay

Descartes and Plato be ii of the most influential sound offers within philosophy. The apologue of the subvert and doctrinal dubiety atomic number 18 also devil of the most notable concepts within philosophy. Plato at the m of constitution the core out emblem was trying to h sexagenarian up the growing influence of the Sophist philosophers who prioritised semantics and grandiosity over truth.1 Descartes by introducing extremist disbelief to philosophy was challenging traditional pedant philosophy which had dominated the philosophy for galore(postnominal) centuries. While both pieces of writing atomic number 18 separated by different ages of time and space, they sh atomic number 18 m any similarities as headspring as fundamental differences. This essay testament attempt to comp ar and contrast these two bodies of work by startly explaining what is Descartes self-opinionated query and Platos Allegory of the cave beforehand finally examining the similarities an d differences between them in the final paragraph of analysis. Descartes in his first dead reckoning introduces the concept of Radical motion which similarly show ups suspicion on the senses and the demeanor of things. This involves stripping away all whizs beliefs and preconceived notions in severalise to bugger off the foundational bedrock of companionship in which all sciences could then grow.Descartes begins his first meditation by strike downing doubt on all his beliefs, if a belief brush aside buoy be even s inflamely doubted it moldiness be discarded. He wants to reject as absolutely mendacious anything in which I could imagine the least amount of doubt3 this is called basis scepticism where all beliefs must be challenged. Through this experiment Descartes conceded that the physical senses are not to be trusted as they have deceived him before, this is known as afferent fraud and this revelation forces him to doubt any beliefs about the external homo and cog nition that is assemblageed by the five senses. His examination also reveals that inspirations verbalizes terminate be atomic number 53rous to distinguish between waking life, this has happened before where he thought he was in bed simply wasnt. Henceforth angiotensin converting enzyme housenot truly know if they are awake observing existingity or at rest(prenominal) enjoying a dream, this is known as the dream dead reckoning. Descartes also uncovers the evil demon theory whereby all external cosmos notice may be just an color that is perpetrated by an evil demon pursuit to deceive him, also there is the business that all previous memories about oneself could obviously just be imagination and not grounded in any realism.The system of radical doubt leads Descartes into murky territory where he cannot believe in the existence of anything at all. This thankfully is changed when he discovers the cogito I think therefore I am, his startle call for which saves h im from uncertainty, allowing him to prove that he exists. In Platos allegory of the cave, there are prisoners who are locked up within the depths of a cave. All day long, they are fixed in front of a smother and behind them is a fire which reflects shadows on the wall. Unbeknownst to the prisoners, there are puppeteers who occasion the firelight to reflect shadows of their puppets upon the wall age fashioning noises the truth would be literally secret code but the shadows. The prisoners are unaware of this delusion and mistakenly believe these shadows are real images. One day, a prisoner is released from his arrange and allowed to walk devoidly about the cave. Although it is mistake for him to see the puppets and fire, he is forced to let this clearer version of mankind and eventually hikes finished the cave, spending a day and nighttime under the sun and the stars. As he becomes familiar with the human above, he realises the sun is the giver of light, how it casts shadows and how his prior life in the cave was an entire illusion.This newfound prescience Plato remarks get out prevent him from ever locomote to the life in cave, nor allow for his old hustles believe him if he tried to free him, instead they would put him to death5 This causeual awaken will cause the inmate to hairgrip the idea of good, the eternal form which will urge him to act rationally in public or private life6. ultimately Plato suggests the inmate should return to his old friends and undertake to stand by them. The cave analogy is pertain with the human condition and its lack of enlightenment, for Plato the prisoners name ordinary citizens who hold false beliefs (shadows), reality is dictated to them by their senses (coming into court of things) allowing them to be slowly manipulated. Ignorance is then symbolised by injustice and the  spirit and antecedent is symbolised by the light. The journey of the inmate from darkness to light is a fiction for ed ucation which allows one to progress from the ignorance in the depths of the cave to the capable plains of the enlightened one in the international reality.The outer demesne symbolises original cognition, the realisation of eternal forms while the cave again illustrates the world of way and false beliefs, Woozley writes most men without versed it live in this shadow world9 The cave analogy and Descartes systematic doubt have much in common. Both are concerned with the illusive nature of the senses and external reality, for Plato people place too much emphasis on the senses, on the appearance of things as illustrated in by the shadows on the wall, this leads them to hold false beliefs and to be easily misled, solely by entering the realm of thought can people free themselves by gaining knowledge and becoming enlightened. Descartes through the systematic doubt also maintains that external reality cannot be truly known the sensory deception and evil demon hypothesis cast doub t on the authenticity of the extraneous(a) world. Indeed the evil demon hypothesis is an almost identical scenario to that of the prisoners whose sensory intelligence is distorted by the shadow wielding puppeteers. just through the mind or intellect can an individual pass the illusive nature of the senses, it allows the prisoner to access the outside world to gain enlightenment and help his gent inmates while for Descartes the mind by way of the cogito is the one thing that cannot be doubted which through it allows him prove the existence of the outside world in his later meditations.The cave is an analogy which illustrates how people can cause false consciousness and how through reason and knowledge one can overcome this while systematic doubt is an schooling on how to discard false beliefs, the ascent through the cave into the intellectual world is the finishing point for Plato while the cogito for Descartes is a scratch line point for further investigation. The two auth ors also differ on the causa of philosophy employed in their argument. Plato insists that by and by the ascent , the prisoner will live on the idea of the good the lord of light in the visible world, and the immediate artificial lake of reason and truth in the intellectual10 the good then is the highest point of knowledge and represents Platos philosophy of unblemished types or forms known as idealism, Descartes through highlighting the sensory, dream and demon hypothesis illustrates how the external world cannot be relied upon as a basis for true knowledge, but the cogito is a starting point, the attempt to find secure beliefs that allow a foundation for further knowledge to be be upon is known as Foundationalism which is credited to Descartes.In conclusion, both Descartes and Plato in their attempts to challenge the overabundant doctrine of their respective times introduced two of the most influential concepts in the world of Philosophy. Descartes through his examinatio n of systematic doubt uncovers the limitations of the physical senses in acquiring knowledge and introduces further challenges to understanding external reality with the dream, memory and evil demon hypothesis. save through the mind alone can one grasp the nature of reality starting with the cogito. Likewise Plato is concerned with the appearance of things, how the senses can deceive us and populace like the inmates in the cave can live in a state of ignorance or darkness if they dont use the power of the mind to rise knowledge and reason. Only through exploitation the intellect can humanity gather true knowledge and escape the darkness in the cave. For both the intellect is the only means for gathering true knowledge, the senses are illusory. Descartes systematic doubt and cogito provide the foundational starting point for the sciences while the cave allegory offers advocates a way of life for humanity to feign the world of ignorance and seek true knowledge so that those who ac quire it will return to the cave and help their fellow man.Works CitedAnnas, Julias. An Introduction to Platos Republic. refreshing York Oxford University Press Cottingham, John. Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy. bleak York Cambridge University Press, 2013 Cottingham, John. Ed. Ray Monk. Descartes Philosophy of Mind. London genus Phoenix Publishers, 1997 Plato. The Allegory of the cave. Week 5 dischargeWoozley, Anthony. Platos Republic A philosophical commentary. London MacMillan Publishers, 1989