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Fred David
Professor Alapin
English 120
13 February 2015
Plato’s Perspective on Education
In one of his most famous works, The Republic, Plato creates an eternal allegory giving
light to the most important contributor in modern society—education. Over 2,500 years later
people are still reading and analyzing his allegory of the cave. This allegory found in “Book VII”
of The Republic attempts to answer many life questions regarding what is reality, knowledge,
and education, and what are we to do with them.
Plato creates this cave allegory by creating a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon.
Throughout “Book VII” Socrates is telling Glaucon to imagine this scene so that he can
“compare human nature in its educated and uneducated state” (Plato 514). Socrates then goes on
to describe a cave where prisoners are being kept and are bounded in such a way that they can
only see shadows of figures and nothing else. He consistently checks with Glaucon that these
shadows that the prisoners see are their only reality. With that these prisoners can only
reasonably believe that the shadows are the truth and that the noises they hear from the actual
people moving through the cave are coming from the shadows.
Naturally, these prisoners create some sort of game where they attempt to guess what the
shadow is and whoever guesses correctly is then praised. Socrates then proposes to Glaucon that
only one of the prisoners is set free. By setting free just one prisoner Plato has now completely
changed that one prisoner’s reality. This prisoner at first is in disbelief of what he is seeing and
after time he adjusts to his new surroundings. He goes on an intellectual journey and learns that
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the sun is responsible for all life and for everything he knows. With this new knowledge he
becomes very excited and understandably wants to share it with his old fellow prisoners. He
returns to the cave, however he has become so well adjusted to outside light that he can hardly
see clearly in the dark cave. This lack of vision kills his credibility with the prisoners who now
believe that leaving the cave will cause them to lose their sight and thus their guessing game—
the most important thing in their life. The free prisoner’s attempt to explain the wonderful reality
that exist outside the cave falters, and the other prisoners refuse to leave, they even threaten to
kill him if he forces them to leave.
Plato uses this allegory to allude to the problems with education. For instance, the cave
itself is symbolic of people, who think what is true in this world is only proven true by empirical
evidence. According to “‘The Allegory of the Cave: by Plato’ Summary and Meaning,” on
philosophyzer.wordpress.com, “the cave shows that believers of empirical knowledge are
trapped in a ‘cave’ of misunderstanding” (Trumpeter). Leading into the symbolism of the
shadows. Plato’s use of shadows in this allegory exemplifies the mistake people make when they
perceive an absolute truth from mere sight, when in fact this is the shadow of truth.
Along with the shadows comes the game the prisoners created. Denoting a master to
whoever could accurately guess the shadowed figures represents society’s belief “(…) that one
person can be a ‘master’ when they have knowledge of the empirical world” this belief according
to Plato is utter nonsense (Trumpeter). Plato articulates this more by having the free prisoner
realize, after learning the real truth, that the guessing game they played was completely useless.
Reiterating the fact that the master of this “game” or “empirical knowledge” really knows
nothing at all. And people are fools for believing and following these false masters.
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According to “Plato's Allegory of The Cave: Meaning and Interpretation” on buzzle.com,
there are three different interpretations to be made: individual, political, and religious. In the
individual sphere humans all have “caves” of their own. Where they live a dull, mundane, nonchallenging, happy life, however all the while they are prisoners of ignorance. They do not
question the status quo nor do they question reality at all. In the political sphere the puppeteers
represent politicians. Politicians or the puppeteers “cast or control what we should and shouldn't
see [,] [t]hey manipulate the masses who perceive the shadows they see as reality” (Srivastava).
Plato’s point is philosophers, rather than politicians, should be leaders because they want to share
the truth with everyone and not distort or manipulate it.
While in the religious sphere, part of this can be related to the New Testament in the
Bible. Where Jesus, an enlightened soul, has sympathy for those unaware or not “saved” and
wants to share his known truth with these people no matter if they deserve it or not. Jesus also
does this knowing that they might deny it or hurt him. This is almost identical to the freed
prisoner’s actions. For example, in Plato’s allegory “[t]he freed man then feels that it is his moral
duty to go back and make others aware of the truth that he has just discovered, whether they are
worth saving or not. They might deny or hurt him, but still the man enlightened with the truth
wants to help the ignorant society” (Srivastava). With this mindset it seems safe to say that Jesus
could be categorized as a philosopher.
In conclusion, the freed prisoner in this allegory represents the philosophers and thinkers
of the world. He left the norm, explored and thought outside of the box. He let his mind adapt to
new information, and appreciated beauty. Plato’s main message here is that society needs to be
open-minded when it comes to knowledge and change or else we lock ourselves in a dark cave
with a false sense of truth and reality.
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Work Cited
Srivastava, Swapnil. "Plato's Allegory of The Cave: Meaning and Interpretation." Buzzle.
Buzzle.com, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/platosallegory-of-the-cave-meaning-and-interpretation.html
Trumpeter, Amy. "'The Allegory of The Cave' by Plato: Summary and Meaning." Welcome to
the Philosophyzer. 21 Sept. 2012. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. https://philosophyzer.
wordpress.com/ 2012/09/21/the- allegory-of-the-cave-by-plato-summary-and-meaning/