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Alapin English 220 18 February 2014 Understanding Platos Allegory of the Cave The beauty behind Platos teachings is the many interpretations that can be made. Whether it be his thoughts on justice or aesthetics, no two people will take these concepts and understand them in entirely the same way. One of Platos most famous teachings was The Allegory of the Cave. This piece of Platos many writings has been analyzed and critiqued since the time of its origin. Broadly, in The Allegory of the Cave Plato talks about how the education of man kind can, in a sense, open our eyes in all aspects of life. I however, am interested in what Plato has to say about knowledge and how exactly we can come to gain knowledge. This is crucial in understanding Platos point because, it can be hard to become educated if we dont understand how we come to gain knowledge in the first place. It will be beneficial for us to first take a look at what Plato classifies knowledge as, and then apply it to The Allegory of the Cave. I have set my paper up into three categories to achieve this goal. The first category is a summary of The Allegory of the Cave. We must be clear on the topic before we can begin to analyze it. The second category is Platos ideas on how judgement and account contribute to knowledge. Though Plato has many theories about what may contribute to knowledge, this particular view applies most to this view of The Allegory of the Cave. Finally, the last category is Platos view of the idea of the non real, and how that idea also applies to The Allegory of the Cave.

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SUMMARY OF THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE First, let us make a quick overview of what The Allegory of the Cave is saying in a structural sense. Plato sets a scene where there are prisoners at the back of a cave facing the cave wall. The prisoners have been bound in chains so that they cannot turn around and the only thing that they can see is the wall in front of them. These prisoners have been bound their entire lives, and this is all they know. At the opposite end of the cave there is a fire that never ceases to burn. The position of this fire casts shadows on the wall that the prisoners are facing. Between the fire and the prisoners there is an elevated road. This road is used by many travelers transporting many different things. Due to the position of the road in relation to the fire, whenever travelers walk across, their shadows are cast onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The shadows however are disfigured objects that seem to take no true human form to the prisoners. The vastness of the cave also makes every sound the travelers make become distorted, and due to this the prisoners only ever hear distorted echoes that they cant make sense of. After Plato sets the stage he creates the scenario where one of the prisoners is plucked out of the life he knows and is taken out into the world. Since the newly freed prisoners entire life was spent in the cave, this outside world is completely new to him. Something as common as the sun is a new concept. He can now see people and interact with them and hear them speak. He sees animals and hears the strange sounds they make as well. All of his new experiences are an unveiling of a truth that he was once blind to. A whole new world has suddenly become possible when for years all he knew existed was distorted shadows making strange sounds. This new found education has changed his entire way of thinking. Plato doesnt leave it at that, however.

Baysinger !3 Plato does something very important by having the prisoner return to the cave to try and enlighten the prisoners he left behind. The newly freed prisoner shouts from the road to the prisoners still in chains, hoping to try and educate them on the new world he has discovered. All his shouts merely fall on deaf hears because the prisoners can only see yet another distorted shadow creating incomprehensible sounds.

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KNOWLEDGE IS JUDGEMENT WITH ACCOUNT The book Theaetetus, which was also written by Plato, talks about knowledge and how we come to obtain it. Like many of Platos writings, Theaetetus is written in the form of a dialogue. In one section there is a conversation between Theaetetus and Socrates where Theaetetus challenges Socrates in saying that knowledge is true judgement with an account. Before his argument Socrates asks Theaetetus, Are you prepared to lay it down, on those lines, that true judgement with an account is knowledge (McDowell 126). Throughout the discussion Socrates disproves Theaetetus prior understanding of knowledge by showing him that it cannot be an account along with true judgement. Socrates describes an account of something as one of three things. One being a sort of image in thought and speech (McDowell 131). The second being the ability to go through the thing, element by element (McDowell 131). Finally Socrates says that an account is being able to state some mark by which the thing one is asked for differs from everything else. (McDowell 131). By stating these definitions for account Socrates trying to convey that saying one has an account of something, is the same as saying that person is knowledgable about that thing. In other words, to say knowledge is correct judgement together with an account, is the same as saying knowledge is correct judgement together with knowledge (Mc-

Baysinger !4 Dowell 133). Its easy to see that once Socrates works through the meanings of the terms, Theaetetus argument collapses on itself. Going back to The Allegory of the Cave, once the prisoner is set free he has a new account and forms a new judgement about the world. His new judgement that the world is more than shadows on a wall can be considered correct. Also his new account of the world which he obtained through his senses is also justified. Its only when he returns to share his experiences with the other prisoners that he is discredited. His new account and judgement of the world seems true to people of the world, but to the prisoners his judgement is false and his accounts are lies. The prisoners new found education means nothing because the people he is sharing it with know nothing more than the wall in front of them. As Plato puts it in The Allegory of the Cave, And theyd say he came back from above with ruined eyes and the trip wasnt worth the attempt (Plato 177). What Plato is saying in both Theaetetus and The Allegory of the Cave is that knowledge is relative and the idea of knowledge is not as simple as we all might think.

THE PRISONERS VIEW OF REALITY Another topic Plato touches on is the idea of the real versus the non real. In the book Platos Theory of Knowledge, Plato uses dialogue once again to talk about the idea of what is unreal and how to properly refer to it. Plato uses two characters in this dialogue once again, one being the Stranger and the other character is named Theaet. The Stranger wastes no time in trying to get his point across. He refers multiple times to things that are not and that which is not (Cornford 206). After doing this he asks Theaet, if when talking about reality, if we can assume that numbers are real things and if they do exist (Cornford 206). As anyone would agree,

Baysinger !5 Theaet says that numbers are real and do truly exist. The Stranger then raises the question that since numbers are real things, saying the phrase things that are not would be attaching something that exists to the nonexistent (Cornford 206). He goes on to say that saying that which does not exist is also applying existing characteristics to something that does not exist (Cornford 206). In more manageable terms, words like things and that are words used to imply a numeric value. But to say, things that are not or that which is not, would be applying numeric value to exactly nothing at all. Plato finds that doing this is contradictory in nature. This can also be found in The Allegory of the Cave. If the prisoner could return to the cave and manage to try and talk with the prisoners that are still bound, would his words mean anything at all? When we hear that which does not exist, its easy to feel as though we understand the meaning of what is being said. Its only after Plato breaks it down that we can see the error in a phrase that seems so common and simple. We simply cannot refer to something that does not exist. There is no way to use words, which are tools used in the physical world, to describe something that is not physically in existence. When the freed prisoner tries to relay his message of the new world to the other prisoners, that is exactly what they are experiencing. All the freed prisoners words are referring to things that the still bound prisoners cannot conceive. In order to believe there is a world outside the cave walls, the prisoners would have to be set free themselves.

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CONCLUSION

Baysinger !6 Its these points together that create a picture of what Platos take on education is. At first the prisoner has a reality that he knows to be true. He has only known the wall, the shadows, and the sounds he grew up with. These things are his entire existence. Its only until he his set free into the world that his mind can expand. He feels, hears, smells, tastes, and sees things that change his entire perspective. He was not told about such things, nor could he have understood if he had been. Education is something one must experience on their own, not only in a classroom but in the world as well. Education is going on constantly. Every moment that passes someone is learning something that they did know before. Its just a matter of being free enough to the idea of education.

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Works Cited

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"Plato and the Concept of Knowledge." Intoduction to Philosophy. Ed. Michael Bratman, John M. Fischer, and John Perry. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. 126-133. Print. Plato. Platos Theory of Knowledge. Trans. Francis M. Cornford. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957. Print Plato. The Republic. Trans. Raymond Larson. Arlington Heights IL: Wiley-Blackwell, 1979. Print. Plato. Theaetetus. Trans. John McDowell. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1863. 94-109. Print.