Reading both Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" and Maimonides' "On the Limits of Man's Intellect" opened my eyes to different views on how one can recognize true knowledge. I agree with Plato on a couple of points; for example, when he said that when people want to gain knowledge, they must bring forth an effort, and also if one desires to live ethically, it is essential to live beyond the world of your sensory perceptions because they are unreliable and imperfect. I agree with Plato on virtue, stating that wisdom has a divine power that may be turned either towards good or evil. Reading "on the Limits of Man's Intellect" gave me reasons to disagree with Maimonides. His theory of man not being able to understand a thing because he or she did not discover it and his point on the human brain, where he believes that there is a certain point to which the human mind cannot pass, became vague. These authors share the view towards the significance of knowledge being life's number one objective, but there are differences in their thought to agree and disagree.
             In Plato's Allegory, man is basing what he knows on shadows. To the prisoner, "[......] truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images" (Plato 316). Plato uses this appearance versus reality scheme to focus on man's perception of things. For example, if I were to hold an object (let's say a sneaker) behind the prisoner, he would say, "I see a sneaker." He thinks he is talking about a sneaker, but he is really talking about a shadow. The prisoner relies on his perception to find out the truth where he should concentrate on the real thing that casts the shadow. One could ask, well then, how do you gain true knowledge? Agreeing with Plato, I would say "[......] that the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort" (Plato 319). A person cannot say the Grand Canyon is beautiful if he relies on information that a friend ...