Platos

Allegory of the Cave

Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall.
The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and
begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners
get to seeing reality.
He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to
understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true
form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

Knowledge Questions: How Do We Know?

In other words, we are asking questions like ...

Do we understand the sources the knowledge comes from?

How reliable are these sources?
What are the Ways on Knowing involved? What is their reliability?
What justification is there ?
How objective/subjective is the knowledge? What other viewpoints are possible? Are there
counter-arguments?
What biases could there be? Which ones are inevitable, and which ones could be avoided?
What are the Knowers own biases?
What evidence is there? How much evidence is enough?
How are different Areas of Knowledge and Ways of Knowing interrelating in the particular
situation?
What is the role of personal knowledge in the interpretation of the shared knowledge? What is the
role of shared knowledge in the interpretation of the personal knowledge?

Knowledge Gaps
(the diagram presented by Ric Sims)

Note that it is impossible to directly observe the actual link between the left hand side objects
and the right hand side objects (hence the dashed arrow).
Think of an example to illustrate each of these implied links. Try to explain why the gap exists
in your example.