The parable of the cave written by Plato is an illustration of his idea concerning education. Plato believes that political problems will finally be solved when men and women of unquestionable moral standing use knowledge ad understanding acquired through education to liberate and emancipate the state from the actions of the ill educated and those without such knowledge.
In Phaedo, Plato observes that most people disregard the intrinsic value of knowledge and understanding by deliberately shunning new set of ideas, disciplined study, and new ways of thinking and intellectual effort that they are not accustomed to.
Most people are so perplexed by the foregoing that they turn away their eyes from understanding the truth just like they would avoid looking at the sun in the eclipse. For this reason, Plato finds the ascent to the truth to be both confusing and painful and that knowledge can only be acquired through various degrees of endurance.
The parable of the cave talks about prisoners who are deeply rooted in a world of illusion. They cannot see each other or even discern the voice of the puppeteers; they all believe that it is the shadows that are doing the actual talking.
A prisoner that has the chain attached on his or her neck broken and forced to turn his/her head cannot acquire proper knowledge of the real stuff unless he or she moves the body as well. The reaction of such a prisoner who has been set free would be that of someone completely caught of guard. He or she will experience pain in the eyes due to the light from the fire that has been casting shadows behind them.
He or she will be greatly confused from the moment he/she discovers that the shadows do not talk and all that was being done by the puppeteers which they as prisoners had taken seriously as life issues was nothing short of child entertainment. He or she gets accustomed to the light from the fire and his vision becomes clearer.
Once the freed prisoner has analyzed the constituents of the cave, he or she is again forced to walk outside the cave from where it becomes impossible to see clearly again due to discovery of new kind of light (knowledge/ ideas) which he/she was not used to. The prisoner has no choice but to look on reflections from the water until his/her eyes becomes accustomed to the light again.
When the night falls, he/she discovers other lights on the sky and as time goes by, he/she becomes accustomed to the light from the sun. The freed prisoner at this stage is convinced that reality is infinite as opposed to the narrow views held by the prisoners in the cave, who have full knowledge of reality based on a lifetime of studying shadows.
The movement of the prisoner from initial position of imprisonment to exploring the interior of the cave and then to studying reflections from water to stars and sky during the night followed by discovery of the sun and of course the realization that there are other realities out there is what is called by Plato the ascent to the truth. Education helps the philosopher to move from different levels of ignorance to the ultimate level of incorruptible morals coupled with knowledge and wisdom. These virtues are deemed as the absolute good.
Education enables men to move away from the cave of ignorance and inhumane notions as far as possible. The truly educated strive to control their desires, thus without proper morals, an educated person can be worse than a prisoner who never moved from the cave. In the contemporary society, most intellectuals resemble the wicked man who is wise as the philosopher but has his/her vision focused on wrong values that eventually undermine the ultimate good.
A state can enjoy peaceful prosperity by educating those whose vision is focused on the good. The enlightened person must not wonder at the marvel of the good forever but should instead get back to the cave and free those who are in bondage (Julia, 1991, 76).
Plato depicts four ways of life and thinking through this work namely imagination, thought, understanding and philosophy stage. The final stage helps a person to overcome prejudice and fully grasp the meaning of life (good). The life of every person begins deep inside the cave, the person’s legs and head are bound. Through education, a person is forced to move as far out of the cave as possible and depending on a person’s resilience, a career path is predetermined.
There are those who will not move at all, others will move about the cave and they become warriors and so on and those who move completely out of the cave become philosophers who should be accorded the opportunity to rule if stability in any country is to be realized, however, philosophers aspiring to run government activities should not run any other business while in office and this should be out of free will and not by compulsion (Julia, 1991, 46). The parable of the cave is analogous to today’s media world and education system that is not value based.
Works Cited
Julia, Annas. An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, New York: Rutledge, 1991. Print.