Allegory Of The Cave Education

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“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet,” said Aristotle, Plato’s student and character in the “Allegory of the Cave.” This dialogue written by Plato is about his brother, Glaucon, and Socrates depicting prisoners chained in a cave, unable to move their heads. A fire burns behind them with people and objects passing in between. The prisoners, however, are unable to see them directly since their head is restrained, and can only see the shadows pass in front of them. They believe the shadows they see are the most real things in the world. This strange but beautiful metaphor illustrates the effects of education on the human mind, and those involved with that individual. Plato’s point regarding the pursuit of knowledge is valuable…show more content…
Humans that have stayed in the shadows all those years will not believe information that they cannot grasp with their minds. The prisoner in the story that then goes back into the cave intends to express his knowledge, but instead is ridiculed by the others. Socrates begins to conclude; “Men would say of him that up he went…they would put him to death” (93-95, par. 33). In other words, the prisoners would think that the man coming back into the cave is ridiculous, so they settle for killing any person that tries to leave the cave in order to avoid such absurd information. This can be interpreted into Professor Sundol’s example of herself having studied at one university, but then left to study somewhere else to broaden her knowledge on a subject. Once she went back to work at the original university she had been at, the other people there gave her a “Who do you think you are?” attitude. Socrates concludes by saying, “Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes…either from coming out of the light or from going into the light…” (122-124, par. 41). Specifically, the eyes cannot be trusted, especially with something new. Our eyes tease our brain into thinking we understand something in which we have no context to understand it

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