The Relationship of Allegory of the Cave to Learning and Education

In Plato's “Allegory Of The Cave” he expresses that people are innately born with abilities like thinking and communicating, but their individual outlook on life is relative to their experiences in life; their educational awareness. Like the men chained in the “cave”, restricted to see only shadows of images cast by fire light and muffled echo sounds of voices; if one is restricted from experiencing new things, places or ideas, then in life their reality is limited to only the experiences they have had. The shadows the prisoners see on the wall are their reality not the actual objects that made the images. As our text “”Think” buy Judith A. Boss indicates, experience and facts we receive from additional resources is the basic level of thinking. Without continued facts and experiences, without education, our thinking is limited to our narrowed reality (shadows).

The Allegory of the Cave means that, people do not see things as they really are. That mankind assumes concepts but they do not have the full picture; One reason is because we only have five senses. For example, in Allegory of the Cave, Socrates explains that the chained men see the shadows and assume that they are being cast from the real item. However the shadows did not come from the real things they were just illusions and models. It also means that as humans, we tend to believe what is in front of us and not dig deeper to make sure we are correct.

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

Education is a life-altering event that involves becoming more open- minded. When one’s horizons are expanded they begin to understand and view more. The process of becoming knowledgeable through education can differ from the individual or situation. The overall experience as well can change the perception. Two passages, “Learning to Read” by Malcom X and “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato both contain an individual who goes through the path of gaining wisdom. Although both passages contain similarities involving one going through an experience resulting in the enlightenment of education, there are several differences in how the acknowledgement is approached and the type of predicament the individual is in.

Reaching enlightenment can be equated with discovering a chest of treasure. After winding along a dotted path to an ever-elusive “X”, finally discovering valuable gains can feel more than satisfactory. But how does one begin the journey imprinted on the metaphorical treasure map to enlightenment? How does one procure the map in the first place? Plato’s Allegory of the Cave reveals that someone, a mentor, must be willing to press the yellowing parchment of the treasure map into the hands of the unassuming and complacent human, and whisper, “Go.”

All individuals spend some, if not the entirety of their life in what Socrates describes as, “a cave with a long passageway stretching between [them] and the cave’s mouth,” (Sterling and Scott 209). Cave dwellers find contentment in the shadows on the wall of the cave, never desiring to uncover the root of the shadows and counter fit images. They, unlike philosophers, possess little courage, and desire never to be freed of their shackles and blinders. Philosophers, the minority population of cave dwellers, are those prisoners who not only escape bondage, but have an overwhelming urge to journey outside the cave once they are freed: “One prisoner is freed from his shackles. He is suddenly compelled to stand up, turn around, walk and look toward the light,” (Sterling and Scott 210). The journey from darkness to light, as painted by Socrates, involves pain, confusion, ridicule, and sometimes death; however, those who journey towards the light ultimately reach a greater awareness of true reality, not the disguised reality of shadows and false images on the cave’s walls. Socrates states, “It is a conversion, a turning of the soul away from the day whose light is darkness to the true day. It is the accent to

Part I The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's interpretation of individuals that are illiterate, or blindly following what the majority of others believe to be true. Every element in the cave represents the course to enlightenment beginning with the path that symbolizes the path to understanding. Plato regards it as conviction that those who inform themselves on matters of the mind and matters of the physical world can elevate themselves to freedom (Lawhead, 2009) .The shadows that are objects that appear to the prisoners are merely flickers of what the prisoners interpret them to be, this characterizing an individuals limited view of the world. First comes imagination and then what our limited thought or belief.

Although The Allegory of the Cave was mentioned in relation to the Republic, Plato also used it to describe “the divided line” and being and becoming. In describing and explaining the Divided Line, Plato creates an analogy or allegory to describe his Theory of Forms and his ideals of Being and Becoming (Allegory of the Cave). To do so he created his famous Allegory of the Cave. It begins in a dark cave in which prisoners have been bound to their entire lives. Being bound to this cave, they have been subjected to shadows cast behind a wall, which are being manipulated by other people. They believe that these shadows are real because this is all they know. This part of the allegory is meant to symbolize Plato’s idea of illusions and of shadows, the lowest form of reality that exists in the Divided Line (Allegory of the Cave).

According to The Allegory of the Cave, the process of education should be approached in an individualized manner. As seen in the reading it is hard to get people to break away from their social "norms". In order for the process of education to be successful each approach needs to be individualized in order for students to reach out of their comfort zones. This was shown in The Allegory of the Cave when the individual left the cave but the had a difficult time convincing others do to the same. The approached used for the freed prisoner did not necessarily work on the others, and a different approached needed to be used in order to gain understanding from the others. This is often used in education by differentiation in students in order to gain

Human condition, without education, is compared to people being trapped in a prison dwelling; only mindful the shadows, what they see, and unaware of the rest of the world. The world beyond this cave holds a higher realm that must be accessed to gain intelligible knowledge. In this allegory, one of the people in the prison dwelling is freed, forced to turn around to face the fire casting the shadows, and dragged out the cave into the light. At first, it is excruciating to take this journey until he learns to adjust to his surroundings (Brennan, J. F., 1998, p. 17). This represents the struggle, and effort involved in gaining knowledge, and learn as a philosopher would.

An allegory is a way to express generalizations about human existence using a story. In this case a portrait of a cave is used by Plato to demonstrate how humanity is trapped here and unable to move. They do not see and therefore have no knowledge of the sun or light (which I think is really symbolizing truth or true knowledge). All they know of their existence is the fire and puppet shadows that they see on the walls of the cave. I think the purpose of this allegory is to cause the reader to ponder these questions: Can people gain knowledge if they have never seen the light? Are we humans, those who have come out of the light and into darkness, or have we come out of the darkness into light (causing us to be dazzled, overwhelmed, and unable

The word education comes from the Latin for “to lead out toward.” While timeless philosophers such as Socrates and Plato believe that we, as students, are lead toward the warm light of knowledge, my experience in education begs to differ. The Allegory of the Cave tells of the journey a prisoner faces when thrown into a reality he did not know existed. At the beginning, the prisoner sits in a cave; among others who have been there since birth. The cave is representative of a classroom, as the prisoners are representative of a class. Elementary students learn that appearance is reality in a similar fashion to that of the shadow watchers. While the prisoners may identify a shadow

One should always step out of their comfort zone even if the outcome does not look pleasant. Ignorance is not the way of life, accepting reality is what makes a person progress in life. Everyone should always do critical thinking and accept the truth. When one is living in ignorance, they do not expand their ability to learn and be aware of reality. However, when a person accepts that they do not have the answers to everything and investigate, their minds and eyes are open to a new world. In addition, their world becomes a place of adventure, journeys, and challenges. For example, when the prisoner step out of the cave, he was first hurt when the sun rays hit his eyes, but then he could see clearly the real objects and surroundings, and wanted

We have this concept of knowledge, but when we talk about our own knowledge we talk about things we have gain an understanding of, which shows that there is experience in that field of study. What if knowledge is just simple matter of having experience in each field and that makes you knowledgeable. Also, having knowledge could be as simple as being able to understand the abstract ideas that we have all created over the years of humanity. In the psychology presentation there is an excerpt that explains the way humanoids think “Brains were naturally-selected to respond and act on the environment thereby enhancing the survival of a species given its unique ecological niche. Humans are not an exception. (Dobzhansky, 1958).” Now taking this quote and let’s apply this to The Cave, when the people of the light took out one person of the shadows, lets refer to him as A, A has to adapt to the way of living into the light this leads to the A having to change his thinking of society of the light. While trying to do so it shows that he can now survive in the society of the light. So, did this person just gain all of the knowledge of the light or did he just solve a short term problem so he can survive where is at such as Dobzhansky was saying. A, now comes into the problem when he is thrown back into the shadows to learn and adapt to the way he once was, but since he already has adapted once it doesn’t make the transition easy because switching between two different living situations

In order for a person to survive, they have to learn something. The passage is about how it is necessary for a sentient species to learn new tings and to never close your mind to learning new things. It would be impossible for humanity to have come so far in advancement if all people refused to ask how things worked and why they were there. The passage points out many different points about why it is necessary as a species to always figure out ways to work ourselves smarter not harder. For our species survival, we learned how to hunt and grow crops, otherwise we would have starved. When there is a lack of knowledge, people perish due to small mistakes that could have been prevented, had the people had knowledge of a safer way to live. Many examples were given to how man has invented ways to skirt around things we don’t know, or, don’t know much about. For our species, it has been our way to see how things work and constantly try to improve them. It has been our way to see that something is too hard or too dangerous to do, and find another way to do it. This is how we survive, so we must continue to learn more, so we may improve more.