Class on Wednesday, January 21 began with a brief review of conservation and liberal perspectives on schooling, and an introduction to the radical perspective. These notes are available in the class summary for 1/13 & 1/14 prepared by Professor Pope. The class then began our discussion on our first assigned readings.

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”~ Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 39 [Free Press, 1979];

Plato is considered to be the most famous essential reading for Western thought. Socrates, Plato’s teacher, is the main character, or mouthpiece for most of Plato’s works. The question/answer format in this work is known as the Socratic Method. In Book IV of the Republic, Socrates is having a conversation with Glaucon. Plato begins Republic with discussions about justice. For Plato, justice is harmony between Truth, government, and the individual. He also considers philosophical questions such as how do we know our form of government is the best one? Plato believes that government laws should be bigger that the actual government itself. Government should represent or mirror the way that things are in the world. Plato believes that education should be in the hands of the state since the point of education is the betterment or furthering of the state.

Plato’s Republic, Book VI

Form of the Good: what makes something good? Plato says that knowledge is better than pleasure, as animals can experience pleasure. Pleasure is “beneath” us. Knowledge is what sets humans apart from animals. Humans have the ability to discern truth and recognize good (which is not the same as pleasure). For example, even though exercise can be painful, it is good. The Good makes knowledge possible because knowledge depends on discerning better things from worse things. Knowledge shouldn’t be from things that are not true. We can believe in things that aren’t true but we can’t know (understand) things that aren’t true. Consider the following analogy:
Good : true :: not good : false
The Good is that which makes all other things (like achieving understanding) possible: “[s]o that what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good” (p.18). It can be seen from this how Plato’s works could have influenced the early Christian theologians.
Book six ends with the divided line, which represents the order of being from least real to most real, and can be represented as a follows:
Understanding: Reach this level through reason; Plato thought this to be found in math; most real
Thought: Scientific level- non-physical concepts that underlie our physical reality
Belief: physical & practical existence, even though we may not have experience with them
Imagination: least real; may be not true; art (mere representations of real things)


Consider the following analogy:
Belief : Applied Science (technology) :: Thought : Pure Science (laws/rules that make science possible)
Catapult (technology) Laws of gravity (pure science)

Plato believed we should order our souls according to the divided line; also, we may make the connection between the line and the phases of education. Plato believed that understanding should guide our actions, not our beliefs.

Plato’s Republic, Book VII

The Cave: one of the most famous images of western thought. This is not just an educational metaphor, but a social metaphor as well. It can be considered an allegory. For an image of the cave, click here. (Thanks to Jennette Watts for telling us about the online picture, for we are not art students.) The picture is different from the one we drew in class, but is still a good visual reminder of the cave.

Plato sets the scene by describing the group of prisoners who have been chained by their necks and legs in the cave since childhood. They can see only what is in front of them, since their bonds keep them from being able to turn. The only light comes from a fire burning behind them and above them. A path between the prisoners and the fire is walked by other people whose shadows are cast on the wall in front of the prisoners. Some carry “artifacts”, and some are talking. The images on the wall are the only things the prisoners can take as their “truth”.

When a prisoner is freed of his shackles, he walks around in the cave for a while, and is blinded by the fire within the cave. When he looks at the real objects (artifacts) whose shadows he has seen before, he would still believe at first that the shadow was the truth. Once his eyes adjust to that, he sees another light, which he doesn’t know yet to be the sun, peeking into the cave. Once he gets outside, he is blinded yet again by a much brighter light. He spends a great deal of time looking at shadows outside, just as he spent a great deal of time looking at shadows in the cave when he was a prisoner. Once his eyes are adjusted, the prisoner can look at actual things, and eventually the sun. Plato infers that the adjustment to the lights are arduous, confusing, and takes time.

Once the guy spends time outside and sees the Light (the Good), he has an obligation to go back to the cave and “educate” those captive in the cave of the Light. He cannot go back and be a prisoner anymore, because he has been transformed. He will have to readjust to the cave, after being out in the Light. At first, his eyes would be filled with darkness, and the other prisoners would ridicule him and say that he had lost his sight/vision on his trip upward. Because they have never seen the Light, only very vague shadows, the prisoners will not believe their “teacher.” The prisoners may only be freed through an internal change first and someone who helps them get out of the cave (the “teacher”).

Plato’s cave allegory is the fuel for the contemporary understandings of education. To be freed from his shackles and leave the cave, the person must turn his whole self around towards the light, not just his head. In order to be truly educated, the whole self must be transformed. Real education involves a complete transformation; it changes who you are. Although pain is involved in the education process, it’s better than living “in the dark.” This freedom only comes by believing in those who have left the cave and returned with new knowledge (teachers). The chains cannot come off if one continues to be biased, prejudiced, and have preconceived notions. Plato believes that no one is left from being transformed: “…the power to learn is present in everyone’s soul and that the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body” (p. 22).

Summary compiled by Rebekah Basler and Janet Steele