Born in the 5th century BCE, Plato was a rationalist,...

Born in the 5th century BCE, Plato was a rationalist, idealist philosopher, believing that we are born with concepts within us, and that these concepts are the same for everyone (Solomon, Higgins, Martin, 2012). Through his beliefs, Plato developed a theory which he believed answered the question of ‘What is reality?’, that he called the theory of Forms (Solomon, et al., 2012). According to Plato, the Forms are a perfect ideal of an object or a concept, which is unchanging and innate within us (Solomon, et al., 2012). It is because of the Forms, according to Plato, that we have the ability to know what something is even though we may not have seen that exact thing before (Solomon, et al., 2012). According to Plato, an appearance is what†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬ËœThe Allegory of the Cave’ is a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon in Plato’s The Republic (Solomon, et al., 2012). ‘The Allegory of the Cave’ tells the story of people who are chained facing a wall in a cave, where they cannot turn around. There is a fire on a ledge behind them and people on the ledge. A person walks behind the chained people, along the ledge holding a figure of a horse on a stick above his head so that the fire can reflect the image of the horse as a shadow on the cave wall for the chained people to see. The chained people are to guess what the figure is. One person is freed from the chain of people and made to leave the cave, where they see the forms of what was reflected on the wall. This individual comes back to the cave to tell the people that are chained the difference and what they have not seen, however they do not believe him and for this reason wish that if they could, they would kill him (Solomon, et al., 2012). This allegory provides an example of appearance and reality. According to Plato’s theory of the Forms, the shadow on the wall of the cave is the appearance of the horse. It is there, it can be seen however it cannot exist without the actual figure of the horse, the reality. Because the shadow cannot exist without the actual figure, this analogy shows the distinction and relationship between reality and appearance according to Plato’s theory. However,