Plato, Republic
• The allegory of the cave
○ This metaphor is meant to illustrate the effects of education on
the human soul.
• Education moves the philosopher through the stages on the divided
line, and ultimately brings him to the Form of the Good.
• All the forms are connected, and are comprehended together in the
following way: you work your way up to the Form of the Good through thought until you grasp the Form of Good.
○ Then, everything is illuminated
• We each begin our lives deep within the cave, with our head and legs
bound, and education is the struggle to move as far out of the cave as possible.
○ Not everyone can make it all the way out, which is why some people are producers, some warriors, and some philosopher- kings.
• Socrates ends by remarking that the reluctance of the philosopher to rule is one of his best qualifications for ruling. The only good ruler rules out of a sense of duty and obligation, rather than out of a desire for power and personal gain.
• When we think in numbers, we begin to move from sensible realm to the intelligible
○ By contemplating these truths (numbers and mathematics) the student cultivates his use of abstract reason and learns to stop relying on sensation to tell him about the world.
• The true philosopher must not rely on his sensation but on thought alone
In this chapter of the book, Plato gives the cave allegory in order to explain forms and ideas and to show the importance of education. He asserts that anyone who wants to be sensible in private or public must see the form of the good. Even a slave has the knowledge in himself, but he needs to learn how to reveal it. By experiencing the forms, we remember the idea of things we forgot by birth.
Keywords: form, idea, irreplaceability, form of the good, being, questioning, revealing, knowledge, reason, responsibility, corrupt reflections, representations, sophia, wisdom, doxa, episteme, virtue, republic, Sophists, instrumentalization
• The allegory of the cave
○ This metaphor is meant to illustrate the effects of education on
the human soul.
• Education moves the philosopher through the stages on the divided
line, and ultimately brings him to the Form of the Good.
• All the forms are connected, and are comprehended together in the
following way: you work your way up to the Form of the Good through thought until you grasp the Form of Good.
○ Then, everything is illuminated
• We each begin our lives deep within the cave, with our head and legs
bound, and education is the struggle to move as far out of the cave as possible.
○ Not everyone can make it all the way out, which is why some people are producers, some warriors, and some philosopher- kings.
• Socrates ends by remarking that the reluctance of the philosopher to rule is one of his best qualifications for ruling. The only good ruler rules out of a sense of duty and obligation, rather than out of a desire for power and personal gain.
• When we think in numbers, we begin to move from sensible realm to the intelligible
○ By contemplating these truths (numbers and mathematics) the student cultivates his use of abstract reason and learns to stop relying on sensation to tell him about the world.
• The true philosopher must not rely on his sensation but on thought alone
In this chapter of the book, Plato gives the cave allegory in order to explain forms and ideas and to show the importance of education. He asserts that anyone who wants to be sensible in private or public must see the form of the good. Even a slave has the knowledge in himself, but he needs to learn how to reveal it. By experiencing the forms, we remember the idea of things we forgot by birth.
Keywords: form, idea, irreplaceability, form of the good, being, questioning, revealing, knowledge, reason, responsibility, corrupt reflections, representations, sophia, wisdom, doxa, episteme, virtue, republic, Sophists, instrumentalization