Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Plato’s The Republic talks about many subjects, including how he believed a person learned. He tells about an “Allegory of the Cave”, a story told by Socrates explaining how a person comes into knowledge. It tells of people in a cave facing a wall, chained so that they can not move their body or head and turn around. They were only able to see the wall and the shadows cast along the wall by people and animals walking by the cave entrance. They would only be able to hear their own voices, those arounds them, and the echo off the wall from when people and animals passed by and either said something or made noise. They would then converse and name the shadows and their sounds. Then suppose a person from the outside came and freed a chained person
and led them to the outside. They would experience pain from having to stand and move and also from the brightness of outside. The now unchained person would “require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world.
And first he would see the shadows the best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves, then he would gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he would see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day” (Plato, 3). In other words, the person has to gradually increase the amount of light he can see. This is what Plato and Socrates compared coming to knowledge to. You learn gradually and may not believe what is true to be true in the beginning. They believe unlike others that the ability to learn is already in the soul, it is just that you can not yet see the light because your “eyes” are not adjusted (Plato, 4). However, others that believe that when you learn it is similar to bringing “sight into blind eyes” (Plato, 4). He then goes onto to tell about how when you come to knowledge you then have to reacquaint yourself with the darkness of the cave. And after you do this many times, you will be able to see better than the people still in the cave. After this the job of bringing people to light is now passed onto you (Plato,
5). I agree with Plato’s ideas about education. I think everyone is able to learn, it is only the willpower, mindset, or circumstances that prevent them from becoming the next Steve Jobs or Albert Einstein. Now maybe not everyone is cut out to be the next Albert Einstein, but if everyone was brilliant then we would all then think each other dumb. I think he was right when he said that people learn gradually, like how your eyes adjust to the light. If you are taught everything at once, nothing will sink in, you will not absorb any of the information. When learning you must take things at your own pace, and think about them, dissect each piece of information in your own way. Whether through thinking it all over in your head, talking to another about it, writing it down in a different way, or maybe you do it your own way. Plato also had ideas about how his country of Greece was run. He believed that it should be run by philosopher-kings. Philosopher-kings are kings who “have a taste for every kind of knowledge, and who is always curious to learn is a philosopher. And we must also say that a philosopher is a lover, but not just a lover of wisdom, a lover of all people and things” (Plato, 5). He thinks the leader of the country must be smart and love knowledge.