An Analysis and Examination of Moral Conclusions of the Analogy of Cave in Plato's Idea

Since morality is based upon metaphysic, without a doubt the analysis of moral goals and conclusions of teachings would not be possible without metaphysical research. Plato is considered as the founder of many ontological, epistemological and moral subjects in western philosophy. His influence on philosophical thinking is so much that in Whitehead’s opinion, the whole history of philosophy is merely an annotation of Plato’s work. His dominant way is to advance rational arguments in analogical frameworks. Three important and effective analogies of cave, sun and handwriting, in addition to being an indicator of profoundness of his philosophical thought, has an undeniable effect in the fields of epistemology, ontology and morality. However each analogy has its own effects and results and some common ground could be found between them but no disaccord is found in Plato’s words. Critics and those against Plato’s ideas such as Aristotle and Ibn Sina, etc. has disaffirmed or at least criticized the theory of analogy, yet there is no research done showing disaccord in the things claimed by this paper. The present research deduces and extracts the moral outcomes of cave analogy that matters in the field of philosophical anthropology.