More handpicked essays just for you.
Importance of education to the development of society
Explain the allegory of the cave
Explain the allegory of the cave
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, a controversial issue has been whether “pouring in of knowledge” is not education or whether it is education. On one hand, some argue that education is the process of receiving or giving logical instruction. From this perception, education is all about learning and teaching from one generation to another. On the other hand, however, others argue that education is not all about “pouring in of knowledge.” In the words of Plato, “education isn’t what some people declare it to be, naming, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes (5). The issue is what is the true meaning of education. Though some may say that education is the process of receiving or giving knowledge, I will …show more content…
First, a student who wants to be successful should be open-minded. For example, in The Allegory of the Cave, Plato, who is a well-known Greek ancient philosopher and teacher, uses prisoners to symbolize the importance of education and how things you are already used to is hard to adjust because you are not open-minded. “…eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, namely, when they’ve come from light into the darkness and when they’ve come from darkness into light” (Plato 5). The prisoners were chained by their necks and legs since their childhood that kept their bodies tuned one way. They saw statues of people, and animals made out of wood because of the light provided by the fire. One day a prisoner was freed, but it was hard for him to adjust to the sunlight because he was already used to living in the dark cave. It was even harder for him to adjust back to the darkness because he was already adjusting to the sunlight. After being in the sunlight for so long, he wasn’t able to see the shadows; he saw before because he adjusted to the sunlight. A person who is open-minded about others opinions could learn from them because their views may be …show more content…
In “Apology” by Plato, Socrates stated, “… there are plenty of persons, as soon as enough discover, who think that they know anything, but really know little or nothing” (Plato 32). In other words, humans are imperfect and this explains the limited nature of human knowing. Even when we consider things for a while and in our best operation, we can still make mistakes because we are imperfect. At the same time, the student must know his/her purpose for doing something. “God orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men….” (Plato 35), stated Socrates. He knows that his job was to teach the young men to follow his footsteps and live a good and virtuous life. Just like Socrates, our modern education system should be concerned with making sure that students are learning what is truly important. There will be different levels of education as one goes through his or her life cycle. The modern model represents the way of growing through education and continues to change. If one is motivated, he or she will be successful in his or her life and become a better educated person. In the “Apology,” Socrates visited the politicians, poets and artisans to see which group was wiser than him. He realized that all three groups lacked knowledge in some type of way. Socrates stated that the politician “knows nothing, and thinks that he knows” (Plato 31). Both the
Socrates put one’s quest for wisdom and the instruction of others above everything else in life. A simple man both in the way he talked and the wealth he owned, he believed that simplicity in whatever one did was the best way of acquiring knowledge and passing it unto others. He is famous for saying that “the unexplained life is not worth living.” He endeavored therefore to break down the arguments of those who talked with a flowery language and boasted of being experts in given subjects (Rhees 30). His aim was to show that the person making a claim on wisdom and knowledge was in fact a confused one whose clarity about a given subject was far from what they claimed. Socrates, in all his simplicity never advanced any theories of his own but rather aimed at bringing out the worst in his interlocutors.
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” explains his beliefs on education of one’s soul and the core of the way they shape themselves. The rhetorical devices that Plato represents inside of his story explains how much freedom is worth in this world. The deeper meaning inside of what Plato describes can further be found out once a reader realizes the type of rhetorical devices are being used. For example, Plato portrays prisoners being locked inside of a cave without a way out. These prisoners never got to see the outside world, yet he mentions they “see shadows” which explains they are only able to catch a glimpse of reality from the outside. Plato’s use of imagery gives us a mental picture on the tease we may feel to notice reality but not be able to experience it. In reality, we do not value freedom as much as we are supposed to. We seem to not see the world as he sees it. With the help of personification, Plato uses human like characteristics to describe non-living things to give
In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” he suggests that there are two different forms of vision, a “mind’s eye” and a “bodily eye.” The “bodily eye” is a metaphor for the senses. While inside the cave, the prisoners function only with this eye. The “mind’s eye” is a higher level of thinking, and is mobilized only when the prisoner is released into the outside world. This eye does not exist within the cave; it only exists in the real, perfect world.
“In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave” it represents an allegory that signifies real life meaning.Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is about questioning the fundamental reality of experience.The information In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” is interpreted with real life. I would say the genre of the allegory is nonfiction. It focuses on prisoners who are being held captive. They are being held inside of a cave.The prisoners cave freedom, however hopes being at an all time low due to the fact that the prisoners are bound and chained by the neck. The only thing to observe, a wall with shadows coming in from the fire light that blazes before them.The fire that blazed inside the cave would display shadows of other people walking throughout the cave holding
Knowledge is power, my mom told me if I acquired knowledge in life I would command respect, I would view life differently most importantly I would be able to control my destiny. The president of The greatest country in the world, United States of American was voted in as a president in 2008 because he had great knowledge and his knowledge did command respect. The allegory of the cave was presented by a Greek philosopher Plato in his work the republican in order to compare the effect of education and the lack of it on our nation. “And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened” (Plato 1). Plato tried to explain the nature of reality during his time.
Freedom in mind, freedom in nature, and freedom in subjectivity of individual are three kinds of freedoms. However, freedom should be expressed within the limits of reason and morality. Having freedom equals having the power to think, to speak, and to act without externally imposed restrains. As a matter of fact, finding freedom in order to live free is the common idea in Plato with "The Allegory of the Cave"; Henry David Thoreau with " Where I lived and What I lived for"; and Jean Paul Sartre with " Existentialism". Generally, Plato, Thoreau, and Sartre suggested that human life should be free. They differ in what that freedom is. Plato thinks it is found in the world of intellect, Thoreau thinks freedom is found in nature, and Sartre thinks freedom is found in subjectivity of individual.
In the contemporary world , culture refers to something as vast as the distinctive way of life of an entire community. Culture is everywhere and everyone has it; it is the mass of ideas, traditions, habits, stories, beliefs, and perspectives on life passed on to us from generation to generation through literature, language, art, myth, religion, family, and various other social institutions. Plato had many different ideas when it comes to human behavior and philosophy. Some of those things can be applied to today’s society, some of them can’t. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which is probably his most famous theory, as well as Krishnamurti’s essay on cultural conditioning of a mind, they both focus on cultural values and living within a culture and can still be seen in today’s society.
In the essay “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato addresses how humans generally do not pursue knowledge. Most humans are satisfied with what they already know and do not want to expand their knowledge. Plato uses simple examples to help the reader understand his logic on why humans do not expand their knowledge.
Do we really understand the world we live in and see everyday? Is our everyday perception of reality a misinterpretation, which somehow we can’t break free from? A famous Greek philosopher by the name of Plato sought out to explain this in an experiment he called the Cave Allegory. I will discuss what the Cave Allegory is as well as talk about the movie Interstellar, which is a great example of Plato’s Cave Allegory and how it relates to Plato’s ideas. The question we have to answer first is, what is Plato’s Cave Allegory?
The Apology is Socrates' defense at his trial. As the dialogue begins, Socrates notes that his accusers have cautioned the jury against Socrates' eloquence, according to Socrates, the difference between him and his accusers is that Socrates speaks the truth. Socrates distinguished two groups of accusers: the earlier and the later accusers. The earlier group is the hardest to defend against, since they do not appear in court. He is all so accused of being a Sophist: that he is a teacher and takes money for his teaching. He attempts to explain why he has attracted such a reputation. The oracle was asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was no, there was no man wiser. Socrates cannot believe this oracle, so he sets out to disprove it by finding someone who is wiser. He goes to a politician, who is thought wise by him self and others. Socrates does not think this man to be wise and tells him so. As a consequence, the politician hated Socrates, as did others who heard the questioning. "I am better off, because while he knows nothing but thinks that he knows, I neither know nor think that I know" (Socrates). He questioned politicians, poets, and artisans. He finds that the poets do not write from wisdom, but by genius and inspiration. Meletus charges Socrates with being "a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the State, and has other new divinities of his own."
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" presents a vision of humans as slaves chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of things on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows are the only "reality" the slaves know. Plato argues that there is a basic flaw in how we humans mistake our limited perceptions as reality, truth and goodness. The allegory reveals how that flaw affects our education, our spirituality and our politics.
The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. He sees it as what happens when someone is educated to the level of philosopher. He contends that they must "go back into the cave" or return to the everyday world of politics, greed and power struggles. The Allegory also attacks people who rely upon or are slaves to their senses. The chains that bind the prisoners are the senses. The fun of the allegory is to try to put all the details of the cave into your interpretation. In other words, what are the models the guards carry? the fire? the struggle out of the cave? the sunlight? the shadows on the cave wall? Socrates, in Book VII of The Republic, just after the allegory told us that the cave was our world and the fire was our sun. He said the path of the prisoner was our soul's ascent to knowledge or enlightenment. He equated our world of sight with the intellect's world of opinion. Both were at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. Our world of sight allows us to "see" things that are not real, such as parallel lines and perfect circles. He calls this higher understanding the world "abstract Reality" or the Intelligeble world. He equates this abstract reality with the knowledge that comes from reasoning and finally understanding. On the physical side, our world of sight, the stages of growth are first recognition of images (the shadows on the cave wall) then the recognition of objects (the models the guards carry) To understand abstract reality requires the understanding of mathematics and finally the forms or the Ideals of all things (the world outside the cave). But our understanding of the physical world is mirrored in our minds by our ways of thinking. First comes imagination (Socrates thought little of creativity), then our unfounded but real beliefs. Opinion gives way to knowledge through reasoning (learned though mathematics). Finally, the realization of the forms is mirrored by the level of Understanding in the Ways of Thinking. The key to the struggle for knowledge is the reasoning skills acquired through mathematics as they are applied to understanding ourselves. The shadows on the cave wall change continually and are of little worth, but the reality out side the cave never changes and that makes it important.
In the story “Allegory Of The Cave” it shows a life lesson on how individuals can act stubborn in the world because they are not educated or aware of certain artifacts. In this essay i will give you examples of how real life situations relate to the story “Allegory Of The Cave”. In Plato’s story “Allegory Of the Cave” there are a group of prisoners that have been chained in a dark cave their whole life not being able to turn back at all. The only contact they have with the outside world is seeing the shadows of the things that pass behind them. Then one prisoner becomes free and is able to explore the outside world. When the freed prisoner steps outside for the first time in his life the beaming sun blinds him but then gets used to the sun
Socrates was a philosopher who set out to prove, to the gods, that he wasn't the wisest man. Since he could not afford a "good" Sophist teacher, surely a student of one had to be smarter than he. He decides to converse with the youth of Athens, but concludes that he actually is wiser than everyone he speaks with. He then realizes that their lack of intelligence is the fault of their teachers. Socrates understands that the practice of "sophism" leads to a lack of self-knowledge and moral values. Socrates was later accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and put on trial. In The Apology of Socrates he sta...
In the story of "Allegory of the Cave", Plato illustrates his concerning on humanity and education. By the meaning of "Allegory of the Cave", we understand the effect of education on us. Most of the people ignore the importance of teaching, and they seek to learn the knowledge of the book or other materials. Therefore, they don 't care the truth or ignore it, which leads the truth far from us. "Indeed, the very principle that education ought to be more concerned with drawing out various human potentials than with only depositing information into students owes its origin to Plato" (Burch 7). To improve people 's educational level, we should realize that what