The allegory of the cave is an extended metaphor and it provides an insight into Plato’s view of education. Therefore, Plato is suggesting that “your philosophical journey sometimes may lead your thinking in directions that society does not support.”
#The allegory of the cave pdf free
The prisoners do not want to be free because they are comfortable in their own ignorance, and they are hostile to people who want to give them more information. So, he goes back into the cave and tries to tell his fellow prisoners the truth about reality, but the prisoners think that he is dangerous because he has come back and upset everyone’s conformist opinion about things. When he finally looks at the sun he sees the truth of everything and begins to feel sorry for his fellow prisoner’s who are still stuck in the cave. The first thing he would find easiest to look at is the shadows, and then reflections of men and objects in the water, and then finally the prisoner is able to look at the sun itself which he realises is the source of the reflections. So the prisoner progressed past the realm of the firelight, and now into the realm of sunlight. Plato uses light as a metaphor for our understanding, and our ability to conceive of the truth. However, after his eyes adjust to the firelight, reluctantly and with great difficulty he is forced to progress out of the cave and into the sunlight, which is a painful process this represents a different state of understanding. The light of the fire hurts his eyes and makes him immediately want to turn back around and “retreat to the things which he could see properly, which he would think really clearer than the things being shown him.” In other words, Socrates is stating that the prisoner does not want to progress in the way he sees things, and his understanding of reality. Then he is forced to turn around and look at the fire, which represents enlightenment recognising your ignorance. Socrates goes on to say that one of the prisoners somehow breaks free of those chains. This is what the prisoners think is real because this is all they have ever experienced reality for them is a puppet show on the wall of a cave, created by shadows of objects and figures. Hence, it is almost as though the prisoners are watching a puppet show for their entire lives. The prisoners come up with names for the objects they are interpreting their world intelligible to them. These objects are projected onto the back wall of the cave for the prisoners to see. So, there are men, who pass by the walkway and carry objects made of stone behind the curtain-wall, and they make sounds to go along with the objects. Some way off, behind and higher up, a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners above them runs a road, in front of which a curtain wall has been built, like a screen at puppet shows between the operators and their audience, above which they show their puppets. All they can see in front of them, for their entire lives, is the back wall of the cave. Their hands, feet, and necks are chained so that they are unable to move. In book seven of The Republic, Socrates tells Glaucon, who is his interlocutor, to imagine a group of prisoners who have been chained since they were children in an underground cave. Socrates is the main character in The Republic, and he tells the allegory of the cave to Glaucon, who is one of Plato’s brothers. Plato tells the allegory in the context of education it is ultimately about the nature of philosophical education, and it offers an insight into Plato’s view of education.
It is a short excerpt from the beginning of book seven of Plato’s book, The Republic. The allegory of the cave is one of the most famous passages in the history of Western philosophy.
0 kommentar(er)
