Analysis Of The Allegory Of The Cave By Plato

Liberal education is not something that is not defined easily. There are various different aspects of liberal education that make it what it is. Part of the liberal education classes that Grand Valley offers work to help students understand and define liberal education better. Not only that, but liberal education helps make students what they are today. Through out the various readings, exercises, and various forms of expression, our liberal education class has helped shape the idea of liberal education and how we, and a university can use it to better enhance our experiences in our daily lives.

The Allegory of the Cave, written by Plato, is an expression of Plato’s view of the human condition. It starts with several individuals who has been

trapped in a cave all of their life. They are tied, unable to move their body, or even their heads. They are positioned so they face a plain wall. Behind them is path, were various people, doing various tasks can walk. Beyond the walkway is a large fire, which casts shadows of the walking pedestrians against the blank wall that the prisoners are facing. The sounds made by passersby are all the prisoners can hear, and they assume that the noise is associated with the shadows that they see.
These prisoners have been like this since childhood, they know nothing besides what they have seen cast upon the wall. Finally, one of the prisoners is released, and forced to look at the passersby and the fire. He is unable to see due to the light, and is eventually forced to go outside, into the sun. The prisoner tries to run back to the cave, to get back to what he knows, but is unable to. Slowly he comes to the realization that what he was seeing before was not real, and he has now seen what reality really is. Plato states that if this freed individual then went back into the clave, he would be unable to see, due to the darkness. The current prisoners would then perceive his state of blindness as an adverse effect of the outside, and therefore they would not want to be freed.
This focus is not so much the story, but what it stands for.

It is important note that those prisoners only saw shadows. But because of their captivity the appearance of the shadows is all they knew. That is their subjective reality. But when forced out into what is actually out there, the world changes. We believe what we know. But knowing isn’t seeing. This concept is relatable to education. As Pluto states the presence and ability to learn is in everyone, deep within their soul. But how students are taught, isn’t something that just you memorize, but something you experience. Pluto uses the simile to describe this idea. He states “ The instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body.” (Plato, 1974, pg. 52). Education is the key to the fulfillment of reality. Education is what is teaching us what is not just learned, but what is real. We gain knowledge, but with that we also gain insight. Liberal education is bringing awareness to various aspects of life that we wouldn’t usually look at. Liberal education is there to teach us to go out and experience new ideas, new cultures, and new ways of thinking. And that what we need to experience life

fully.
Education is key to knowing and understanding what reality is. But in order for education to truly do its correct job, how we learn and are taught must be done correctly. How we educate ourselves plays a role into how we see the world. There have been various different authors that we have read through the semester, who value education. They talk of different concepts on how education should be taught. They argue which method works best to for learning, and how to achieve wisdom. Some argue education is not what it should be, and bring awareness that it might be how education is taught is that is the actual problem.