In the Book VII of The Republic, Socrates presents the most famous metaphor in Western Philosophy: the Allegory of the Cave which meant to exemplify the importance of Education in a human being and the four stages of thinking: the stage of imagination, belief, thought and understanding.
Socrates describes these stages in a dark cave where a group of people were bound together and they were not able to look to either side or behind them except to the wall in front of them. A prisoner was able to reach the highest stage of thinking which is the stage of understanding after he was freed from the bond and capable to see the world beyond the cave.
The idea of the allegory of the cave that Plato wants to depict is that we should start in the lowest stage in order to reach the highest stage. Everyone should begin at the stage of imagination or in the cave with the hands and legs bound, and education is the only thing that will help us to make it all the way out because the education has the goal to drag every man as far out of the cave as possible. Because not everyone could make it to the top, Socrates reminds us that our goal is not to make any group happy but to make the city as a whole happy, which only means that we should help everyone of us to get out of the cave and to reach the stage of understanding. The city also has the goal to educate every human with right natures so that they will not remain contemplating the Form of the Good forever.
I firmly agree with the idea of Plato, everybody starts at the lower level before they attain the uppermost stage that they could reach. To be able to reach the Form of the Good, education will play a very important role for us achieve our goal because education do not simply intend of putting knowledge in a human being but also taking him at the right desires. When the time comes that were educated enough, we should lend a hand to those who are still in the cave at the stage of imagination.
by: Angelique May C. Garcia
BSBA MM 1-1
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