FREE ESSAY ON ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

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 they have
know way of experiencing truth outside of what they can 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.