Thinking Outside the Box

Compare how Plato and Sartre describe the limitations of our thinking and imply solutions to the problem.  Be sure to analyze their literary techniques, especially their use of allegory and extended metaphor.


Plato and Sartre both describe the limitations of our thinking through their writing but in different ways. Both authors express the mental limitations in a way where we as readers are able to relate to these boundaries, as we have also experienced them. Plato believes we must set our minds free so as not to experience hell from keeping away from our curiousity while Sartre believes we should maintain our thoughts so they don't lead to hell.  As we continue to understand these limitations more in depth we will also find solutions which will set us free. The authors use literary techniques such as allegory and extended metaphor to let their ideas come across with more emphasis.


In "Allegory of the Cave" Plato uses symbolism to show how closed in our minds are. The shackles physically limit the prisoners to the cave which also imprisoned the minds of these men from reality itself and kept them in illusions.  The allegory used in the story is the cave itself which is a symbol for the lack of knowledge and the fear that keeps the prisoners from experiencing new things, real things such as the sun and its heat. Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we percieve and believe in what is reality.


Although many nineteenth century philosophers developed the concepts of existentialism, it was the French writer Jean Paul Sartre who popularized it. Existentialism is a 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad. The thing is we as humans can only decipher what we believe in as much as our minds let us. Our thoughts go as far as our mental limitations go. Then we begin to look for someone else's opinion on ourselves. For example, professional physcologists are people we use when we ourselves are to afraid to go into the unknown. They slowly guide us to what most scares us and at some point we overcome that fear, which is a sense of freedom. The allegory used in Sartre is the room which represents the characters' own personal hell. Because in that room is what each character fears the most.  


Sartre and Plato both speak of limtations in our thinking with diiferent thoughts in mind but with the same outcome. That outcome is us and what we are permitted to wonder.