Analysis Of Plato 's Republic, We Read About The Allegory Of The Cave

Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” examines the quest, responsibility, and cost of intellectual enlightenment. The story is of a man, being held prisoner since birth, being freed and learning that his perception of reality was inaccurate. He shared his discovery, which was met with contention and anger from the people in his society when he tried to relieve them of their ignorance. The group were all born prisoners in a cave where they could not see behind them, and only could hear the echoes, and see the shadows cast of people and items moving behind them. One day, the man was released and was forced to embark out of the dwelling to see that it was actual people and inanimate objects being reflected in front of them. After having difficulty

One of Plato’s more famous writings, The Allegory of the Cave, Plato outlines the story of a man who breaks free of his constraints and comes to learn of new ideas and levels of thought that exist outside of the human level of thinking. However, after having learned so many new concepts, he returns to his fellow beings and attempts to reveal his findings but is rejected and threatened with death. This dialogue is an apparent reference to his teacher’s theories in philosophy and his ultimate demise for his beliefs but is also a relation to the theory of the Divided Line. This essay will analyze major points in The Allegory of the Cave and see how it relates to the Theory of the Divided Line. Also, this

The cave allegory also proves that the role of education is not to teach in the sense of feeding people information they do not have, but rather to shed light on things they already know. Education "isn't the craft of putting sight into the soul. Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn't turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it properly." (2)

In Plato’s Republic, as well as in most of his other works, the philosopher writes dialogues between the character of his mentor, Socrates, and various figures meant to illustrate contradictory positions. He carefully scripts the engagements in a form of discussion now called the Socratic Method, where Socrates critiques the positions of the other characters in order to find flaws in inaccurate arguments. Although this method is prevalent even today, I will make the case that even when Plato himself is using it, the Socratic Method, while not without benefits, is an extremely flawed way of conducting educational discourse.

Book 7 focuses in on Plato’s ideal method of education. He uses the allegory of the cave to illustrate his claim suggesting those who gain knowledge and understanding through faculties such as touch, smell, sight etc. only understand things subjectively. To fully understand objective philosophical truths, he argues, one must employ philosophical reasoning to discover the idea of the good (508e). How does Plato’s approach to education relate to contemporary approaches?

Society's greatest accomplishments are often attributed to a select few, while most members simply witness this greatness as a privilege in their lives. Many modern works of science and art are taken for granted, their benefits barely seen as conveniences. This entitled point of view ignores society's most basic privilege of all, being knowledge. In Plato's The Allegory of the Cave, society is examined from a more existential

Plato’s Republic focuses majorly on the search to find justice, but also gives a lot of attention to education and how the quality of education dictates how just a person and a society will become. Socrates spends time creating the Kallipolis in order to disprove Thrasymacus’ claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger. However, through the methodology used by Socrates to educate the citizens of the Kallipolis, he supports the claim Thrasymacus makes.

The Allegory of the Cave ties in with our world and society we live in today in many ways. One way would be that our world we live in values education a lot, more than a lot of things. In Plato: “Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners value education just as much as we do in the modern century. The prisoners praise one another if they guess the right shadow that is going to be displayed. If they guess the wrong shadow then they make fun of one another. As they sit there in the little cave for most of their life they do not really understand or know what education is but they do think the shadow game makes them smarter than the other prisoners. The prisoners think the shadows are real so they feel smart when they guess right as to what they are.

In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato portrays a story of prisoners in a cave. The prisoners are facing the wall and chained at the back of the cave. They have spent a lifetime in the cave as prisoners, restrained in a position that they cannot move their heads and look around. At the entrance of the cave, there is a fire, which has puppeteers in front holding objects up in order to have their shadows appear on the back wall of the cave. The shadows remain perceived by the prisoners as actual objects.

In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato proposes several timeless concepts that are still relevant today. Among these concepts, is the idea that self-actualization serves to better help others in our society (creating an obligation for those who are knowledgeable to teach those who are less knowledgeable). Like Plato, I believe it’s every person’s responsibility to educate others despite the possibility of being ridiculed. If no one teaches those who are ignorant and keeps all the information to themselves, consequently no one will ever expand their knowledge. Moreover, the more you know, the wiser decisions you’ll be able to make in the future. Learning from others will also result in being able to form better opinions, and your own perspective on topics. As Francis Bacon once said, “Knowledge is power”.

Imagine what you believe and think to be true is not really true. Now imagine that the things you think, your ideas, and your values are not really yours either. Most would find this preposterous, and likely say something along the lines of “of course my thoughts are my own,” or “what is this The Matrix?” However, that is exactly the truth of what is happening in the world today. We are constantly being fed what the media, government, and others want us to think, and we absorb it like a sponge with not asking the basic question: is this true? We are surrounded by modern conveniences and technology that is an awesome tool for learning and research, but most people take these tools for granted and let the information they read or watch fill their minds without investigating the source, or coming to a conclusion of their own.

A topic that has circulated in the minds of many for centuries, is the idea of education and the proper ways to go about applying it. In more than one way, education has had a major part in forming the structure of history and the molding of human beings from the very beginning. The philosophical journey as conveyed in Plato’s Republic, begins to utilize the concepts of justice, injustice, virtue, and apply them to the foundations of education for human beings in the ideal society. Plato tells of the account of Socrates during the discussion between Glaucon, Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Adeimantus on the definition of justice

In their work, Plato and Paulo Freire have offered harsh critiques of education and learning. Plato compares people to prisoners in a cave of darkness in relation to knowledge, and Freire refers to a “Banking Concept” of education in which teachers put their thoughts and information into students’ minds much like money is deposited into a bank. Instead of this money being of value, Freire and Plato acknowledge that the value declines. Although many people refute the concept of accepting new knowledge and admission of mistakes, I claim that both Plato and Freire produce valid points about the corruption of education because people cannot learn unless they have an open mind and truly desire to learn. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the effectiveness of learning and continuing the cycle of education.

Education is a transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. Some societies have oral traditions while others transfer the knowledge by written works. In Plato’s Republic, for Socrates the education system is structured in two major parts: the education of the mind and character and the physical training. For Socrates, truth, justice, and goodness are the main principles for a utopic society. Indeed, for him the truth is universal and therefore in order to have a perfect utopic society it community should be dedicated and based on truth. In fact, in this imaginary society the educational system is an oral transfer of knowledge, which is based on trues stories and fiction. The Republic shows that in this imaginary society the education is strictly control and does not portray any of the three principles of a utopic society. The educational system of The republic demonstrates that nothing is utopic in this imaginary society.

Plato enunciated his theory of education in The Republic that knowledge would allow the person to be guided towards the right desires and would lead to understanding the distinction between forms and appearances with use of the allegory of the cave. He continued his point by explaining how this distinction was prevalent in the study of mathematics, which he considered to be a prerequisite for studying philosophy, and using the knowledge gained to understand complex ideas such as what justice meant. Although this belief also explained how a society was able to achieve one of the four virtues and ultimately reach harmony, it was scrutinized by fellow brilliant minds such as the sophist Thrasymachus, who challenged his theory of justice by stating that it was made to benefit the guardian class and did not attempt to make it fair for the members of the auxiliary or producer class. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, attempted to refute the sophist’s claim in regards to justice, but was unable to provide a satisfactory response to his argument meaning that it was a flawed idea.