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Nicolette Garcia
Julie Bryant
English 120
September 19, 2014

Platos Allegory of the Cave: Experience and Education are the Best Teachers
The Allegory of the Cave is the seventh book in Platos work The Republic, which was written
around 380 BC. Platos analogy can be applied to any day and age, any culture and all of
humanity, this is what makes Platos work treasured and timeless. The philosophers of his time
were conscious of the importance of freeing the mind from of enslavement to mastery through
education and thinking for ones self, having the courage to step out of the norm and experience
life in a new way, as did the brave slave in the Allegory Of the Cave.
The seventh book begins with a conversation between a teacher and a student, compare human
nature in its educated and uneducated state to the following situation (Plato,174). The situation
is as follows. Imprisoned as children the people are chained at their neck and feet, unable to
turn, escape or even look in another direction, the cave wall being their only view. The cave is
dark, however there is one light, which is a burning fire behind them and the shadows of
passerbys is all that they see and all the believe to be true. They have never experienced
anything but this existence, nor have they ever questioned or entertained the thought of the
possibility that there may more to life other than this cave.
After careful framework the teacher unfolds an important turning point of the story where a
prisoner is released, one is released and forced to stand up, turn his head, walk and look up to
the light of the fire, this causes him pain (Plato,178). A prisoner is released and leaves the cave
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seeing the world around him for the first time, it is painful both physically and mentally to
experience light and freedom. This may be because of the realization that for most of your life,
the truth has been withheld and your mind and heart ache. It will be challenging and taxing for
the mind, body and soul to re-educate your mind and unlearn false paradigms.
Now contemplate this prisoner returning to the cave, a person returning to darkness, his return
may not be as celebrative as he thought because the ones still in darkness would begin ridicule
and in their ignorance say he came back from the trip with ruined eyes and the trip wasnt even
worth the attempt. And if they could get their hands on the one who was trying to release them
and lead them upward, wouldnt they kill him? (Plato, 177). By being released the freed
prisoner is afforded the opportunity/education to see the world from new perspectives and the
prisoner also gains knowledge and enlightenment. The freed prisoner could not have gained this
without the actual experience and the fellow prisoners will never understand because the gaining
of true knowing and knowledge is best realized by experience. The fellow prisoners fail to
realize their inherent nature of the souls yearning to evolve; instead they adopt an attitude of
competition and resentment.
Now that the whys have been established, Plato switches gears to what to do now. What can
be done about the exact story being played out time after time again, on an individual level as
well as a societal level? Education would be the art of turning this organ around in the easiest
most effective way, not of implanting sight, which it already hasbut turning to where it should
be(Plato,179).
Education is knowledge, and knowledge is power whether its concerning an individual or an
entire race of people. It would benefit society as a whole to become educated no matter the
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status, occupation or gender; it is a door to freedom. Plato also implies that humanity has been
taught to think that only the elite deserve education, that only a chosen few receive opportunities.
However, Plato states that the power of learning inheres in everyones soul.so it is here we
must turn the whole soul and its organ of learning away from becoming, until it faces being and
can endure the contemplating the brightest of what is ( Plato, 179).
There is a Claymation video entitled The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato's Allegory in Clay. It
illustrates the gist of the dynamics of one coming into light and recognizing it has been there the
entire time as well as the ignorance and lack of faith of the ones left in the dark. The prisoners
do not believe what the freed prisoner has learned of however that doesnt mean the
opportunities dont exist. The most accurate teacher is experience; unfortunately not everyone
can be assuaged to walk out of the cave, but It does not make the world outside of the cave any
less real (Zahra Pictures).
The entanglement of the lack of awareness and lack of education is what society has been going
through for hundreds of years. By lying to the masses and keeping people dumbed down and
ignorant; there is a cave created especially for us, by people who manipulate this world, Closely
linked to Platos thoughts on equality is his positions on public truth telling.lying (Huard 56).
Plato made cognizant the caves we have all been accustomed too, the comfortable bliss of
ignorance and what is innate in every person; the craving of a variety experiences and the souls
longing to be awakened and remembered, the mind to challenged and open, in the hopes
mastering this awareness. The vehicle of experience is the best teacher and education is the
directions.

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Work Cited
Plato: The Republic. Allegory of the Cave .
Elliott, R. K. (1967). "Socrates and Plato's Cave". Kant-Studie

Allegory of the Cave. Zahra Pictures, 2006. Film.

Huard, Roger L. Plato's Political Philosophy: The Cave. New York: Algora, 2007.