Plato

2 Pages 460 Words

The message of Plato’s myth of the cave conveys his theory of how we come to know or how we attain true knowledge. In the cavern people are chained so they can look forward only at the wall of the cave. Behind them, a fire burns which they are never able to see. Nevertheless, between them and the fire runs a path with a low wall, along which people carry pictures, puppets, and statues. The prisoners cannot see the exit out of the cave, the fire burning behind them, or the people carrying objects in front of the fire. They only see the shadows. Plato makes an Appearance/Reality distinction. For example, the relation between what things appear to be to the senses and what they really are. The prisoners are only familiar with the appearances of shadows and thus they mistake appearance, which are the shadows, for Reality. Furthermore, they do not know what causes the shadows. We can reach the forms through the mind much like a sixth sense. We apprehend the higher world through mind in much the same way that we apprehend this world with our eyes. The cave allegory also proves that the role of education is not to teach in the sense of feeding people information they do not have, but rather to shed light on things they already know. Since the soul is immortal, we are born knowing everything we will ever know. All we have to do is remember it or be guided into remembering it. Professors often say that they give the knowledge just as we give gifts, but in all reality we are born with this knowledge which must be inspired and turned on to fully acquire true knowledge. A professor’s job is to guide students into remembrance of things known, rather than filling them with new things. The light of the Sun, or the Good, shines down upon things and helps the man to a remembrance of them. Knowledge is within us, going inward, not mere surface appearance. Therefore he does not have to be told what they are once the light is on them, he recognizes wh...