The allegory of the cave is meant to be a visual aid for Plato, through Socrates, to show how philosophers come to be from a common crowd, how they come to understand the forms, and how they should teach those who do not understand the forms and be the ones who rule over the city. A second way to view the allegory is as a description of how education begins even today.
Plato starts off by comparing ignorance to living in a cave with limited knowledge, which makes sense when one thinks about how closed-minded a people of any population can be. A person like this does not give any thought to things outside of his or her own knowledge and never expands on what he or she may know, just like the prisoners in the cave and how they accepted what they were seeing as the truth. This lifestyle is represented by the chains holding prisoners against the wall, only able to see shadows of …show more content…
A child starts out in life not knowing anything, so children are like the prisoners in the cave-susceptible to anything shown to them. Overtime, children begin to leave this stage of their lives and experience new things, like the freed prisoner. At first they will not adjust well, but overtime as they are exposed to new information and ideas from others, they grow accustomed to the idea of learning every day. As their knowledge grows they will also be capable of determining truth from lies aka, they can critically think for themselves now just as the prisoner was able to when he realized the sun brought light and life to everything- the form of truth (516 c). In conclusion, the allegory of the cave is meant to show how philosophers come from common people and how they come to understand the forms and that they should teach those who do not understand the forms. This is also the reason they should rule over the city. Lastly, a modern day view of the allegory is as a description of how education
Plato starts off by comparing ignorance to living in a cave with limited knowledge, which makes sense when one thinks about how closed-minded a people of any population can be. A person like this does not give any thought to things outside of his or her own knowledge and never expands on what he or she may know, just like the prisoners in the cave and how they accepted what they were seeing as the truth. This lifestyle is represented by the chains holding prisoners against the wall, only able to see shadows of …show more content…
A child starts out in life not knowing anything, so children are like the prisoners in the cave-susceptible to anything shown to them. Overtime, children begin to leave this stage of their lives and experience new things, like the freed prisoner. At first they will not adjust well, but overtime as they are exposed to new information and ideas from others, they grow accustomed to the idea of learning every day. As their knowledge grows they will also be capable of determining truth from lies aka, they can critically think for themselves now just as the prisoner was able to when he realized the sun brought light and life to everything- the form of truth (516 c). In conclusion, the allegory of the cave is meant to show how philosophers come from common people and how they come to understand the forms and that they should teach those who do not understand the forms. This is also the reason they should rule over the city. Lastly, a modern day view of the allegory is as a description of how education