At the beginning of Book Seven in The Republic Plato states, via Socrates in the dialogue, that the allegory of the cave is an "analogy for the human condition - for our education or lack of it," (Baird, Kaufmann 273). In this he means that the prisoners in the cave represent how humans are prisoners in their own minds and to their own ignorance, unable to escape except through education. Plato uses the allegory of the cave to show how most humans are oblivious to true reality, the knowledge of the forms and of The Good. As soon as an individual realizes this fact, or is forced into the realization, then the individual can take the steps necessary, painful though they might be, to find true reality. Plato believes that education is the process
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The sunlight, like the firelight before, would be too bright for his eyes and would be painful until his eyes adjusted once more (275). Once in the sunlight the prisoner would be able to first see shadows most easily as they are most familiar to him, then reflections on the water, then the objects themselves (275). The final step to true reality for the prisoner would be looking upon the moon and the sun itself and coming to the realization that the sun is the source of all that he sees now and all he saw before, for without sunlight nothing would be illuminated and our eyes would perceive nothing but darkness (275). The sun in the allegory is synonymous to The Good, the good is what all beings stem from and receive their goodness from. Plato goes on to discuss what would happen if the prisoner were to be forced back down into the …show more content…
Everyone has the capacity for knowledge and education cannot “introduce knowledge into a mind” that doesn’t already have it; therefore everyone can be taught it only depends on their level of capacity and desire for knowledge (276). Education turns the individual and the individual’s mind towards The Good allowing the individual to one day be able to identify what they are seeing as images of objects and identify what object the image is an image of (278). In the allegory of the cave education is synonymous to the person who forced the prisoner out of his chains and into the firelight, then into the sunlight. This person oriented the prisoner towards a higher level of reality and the prisoner was able to comprehend what he was seeing with time because he already had the capacity for such knowledge, or else nothing of what he was seeing would have ever made
The sunlight, like the firelight before, would be too bright for his eyes and would be painful until his eyes adjusted once more (275). Once in the sunlight the prisoner would be able to first see shadows most easily as they are most familiar to him, then reflections on the water, then the objects themselves (275). The final step to true reality for the prisoner would be looking upon the moon and the sun itself and coming to the realization that the sun is the source of all that he sees now and all he saw before, for without sunlight nothing would be illuminated and our eyes would perceive nothing but darkness (275). The sun in the allegory is synonymous to The Good, the good is what all beings stem from and receive their goodness from. Plato goes on to discuss what would happen if the prisoner were to be forced back down into the …show more content…
Everyone has the capacity for knowledge and education cannot “introduce knowledge into a mind” that doesn’t already have it; therefore everyone can be taught it only depends on their level of capacity and desire for knowledge (276). Education turns the individual and the individual’s mind towards The Good allowing the individual to one day be able to identify what they are seeing as images of objects and identify what object the image is an image of (278). In the allegory of the cave education is synonymous to the person who forced the prisoner out of his chains and into the firelight, then into the sunlight. This person oriented the prisoner towards a higher level of reality and the prisoner was able to comprehend what he was seeing with time because he already had the capacity for such knowledge, or else nothing of what he was seeing would have ever made