Allegory Of The Cave Essay, Research Paper
Allegory of the Cave
In Books II and III of The Republic, Socrates sets the stage for a
view of education for the warriors in the culture, asserting a need for the
study of different disciplines, including art and athletics. Though this
provides a sense of Plato’s perspective on education, his outlining of
educational premises in Book VII, including his view of rational though,
education, and the responsibilities of both the student and the teacher in
his “Allegory of the Cave” defines a call for a curriculum in education based
on the directives and significance of the student, and can be asserted as
the foundations of modern liberal arts educational philosophies.
In order to understand the different views on education provided by Plato,
it is first necessary to consider the messages provided in Book II, Book III
and Book VII. Plato initiates his discourse on education through the
dialogue of Glaucon, Adeimantus and Socrates and their perspective on
the appropriate education of the guardians of any polis. The warriors,
soldiers or guardians of a city are a separate class of people, and
distinguished by their knowledge and deduction to the central elements of
society. Because of their distinctions and their need to understand
wisdom and make appropriate and “educated” choices, the education of
the guardians is a necessary component in defining self-protection. It is
Socrates’ (and therefore Plato’s) assertion that there is a need to educate
the guardians in musical and physical areas, and to promote a correlation
between participation as a warrior and educational prowess. In other
words, it was Socrates’ contention that it was not enough to simply educate
a guardian in warfare, but instead, their role necessitates an understanding
of other premises, including history, song, art, philosophy and even
literature.
It is also Plato’s assertion in the last segment of Book II that one of
the failings of society is the fact that myths of valor and feats of strength
clearly impact the conduct of guardians, and that there is a need to
demonstrate that the warriors are not simply blood-thirsty war-mongers, but
instead have the capacity for rational thought and for the development of a
wide variety of personal characteristics. Book II of Plato’s Republic
begins with the assumption of the necessity for the education of the
guardians but takes this argument further by demonstrating the benefits of
physical and musical training. It is Plato’s assertion that these are
necessary in order to determine that the warriors, the guardians of
the city are actually true and virtuous. As a component of the arguments for
education in the guardian class, Plato also suggests that the man cannot
be assumed to be truly wise or to have the capacity for effective decision
making if he cannot comprehend basic aesthetic virtues like beauty as well
as more complex issues like morality. The guardians of any ideal city, then
would demonstrate their capacity for instilling virtue in others and directing
the course of their own actions to maintain this premise. In conjunction,
Plato asserts the need for a moral education of the guardians in order to
determine the capacity of guardians to instill morality in others.
In Book VI, Plato sets the premise for his argument for education in
his determinations regarding the soul, the search for truth and the pursuit of
intelligence.
The most substantive view of the correlation between Plato’s premises and
modern educational philosophies can be seen in Book VII, when Socrates
presents the “Allegory of the Cave”. This story, provides and outlines the
role of both the teacher and the student. Socrates’ message begins in the
idea that individuals can develop within surroundings that are so limited
that t
directly perceive, and this is the essential underpinning of ignorance. But if
an individual can learn to understand the possibilities outside of the
realm of singular understanding, and by exposure to different things,
determine new understanding, then Plato would assert that all men have
the potential to move from ignorance to knowledge.
The basis for the “Allegory of the Cave” is this: a prisoner is held in a cave
for his whole life (since birth), only able to see and experience that which is
placed before him. For example, the fire that is used to luminate the cave
becomes the center of the world much like our own sun is such a
compelling central component, and the prisoner experiences everything
that he sees and understands relative to the fire. In conjunction, the fire
become a means of visualizing other elements, including exposure to a
puppet and the shadows on the wall, and all of these factors make
up the specifics of what is known in the world of the prisoner. The divided
line is an imperative concept within the scope of this premise. In essence,
the teacher is the individual who directs the pursuit of knowledge past the
initial limitations that have been set. It is not the teachers responsibility to
simply say “here is the sun, here is the moon…now you know everything”
because the student would never understand the process necessary to
continue with the directive of self education. As a result, the process of
wisdom requires that individuals adapt and learn their own skills for
learning. Knowledge, then, is not simply sensory based (because the
prisoners in the cave, for example, believed they had the knowledge of the
fire, the shadows and the cave itself as if these were the only elements in
the world that needed to be known), but also extends past our senses into
the realm of logical reasoning, constructive reasoning, and a process
orientation to learning and developing wisdom. Rather than simply
producing information and addressing the learning process and the
students in order to bring them into complicity, it is Plato’s contention that
the learning process, the same process that occurs when the prisoner in
the cave is allowed to leave and experiences the sun, the moon, trees, and
all of life’s sciences and concepts, should be student directed. The teacher
is simply a means by which the student can come into connection with the
ways of attaining knowledge, but the process of learning itself must be
singular and directed by a personal learning focus. The teacher provides
the individual with the means to perceive themselves, to evaluate their
nature, and to consider the search for truth as a major aspect of the
educational process. It can be asserted that this kind of student focus
is the primary component of the modern liberal arts system, and
underscores the importance of the student in the learning process.
In addition, it is also Plato’s assertion in Book VII that the metaphor
of the cave, asserting man’s ignorance prior to learning, results in the need
for a teacher who can provide exposure to different subjects, different
perspectives and a range of educational subject areas. The Cave scenario
allows for the evaluation of the many different areas in which man should
pursue study, including the study of the actual, the factual, the scientific
and the conceptual. It is not enough to simply assert that by studying a
number of different subjects, the prisoner will gain enough knowledge to
determine their own route towards wisdom: there is greater support for the
view that the process orientation of learning, which includes the
assessment of the learning process and the determination of impacts for
wisdom underscores the benefits of this perspective in the development of
a modern curriculum.