Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" Study Questions

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?


According to Socrates the Allegory of the cave is to depict "our nature in its education and want of education" as in the impact of education on individuals, what ultimately creates the "divided line" of the spirit and the formation of the "good".

2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?

There are a plethora of elements, symbols and allegories presented in the Allegory of the Cave but the most prominent (in my opinion, as well as research) is the following:  The sun represents the absolute good/knowledge. The "Growth" represents reality. The light represents the truth, and the visibility represents intelligibility (intelligibility as in the comprehension of given knowledge).


3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?

Just as relevant to the pioneers of education, such as Socrates, to our own contemporary curriculums the Allegory suggests a seemingly invariable facet of humanity as the prisoners (students) at first resist enlightenment, as students resist education. The prisoners, ultimately allegories of students, confront and resist all education, but, with proper stewarding eventually come to embrace the assistance of the freed cave dweller achieving enlightenment, passing the "divided line" to the "Form of the Good" intial collaboration then individual determination.

4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?

The shackles and title of the cave dwellers as prisoners enlightens the shrewd reader of the subterranean captive's perspicacity: they perceive, as students perceive education, that they are captives, prisoners by birth within the cave, not truly understanding or appropriately of the cognitive stage to understand why they are in the cave, why it is important. In fact they eventually become numb to their captivity, eventually coming to enjoy it, the only ignorant reality they know. Contemporary students perceive themselves as prisoners bound without shackles, but still self-applied binds, to school resisting educational endeavors, not understanding that education would inevitably enlighten them to their pursuits, paths beyond the "divided line".     

5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?


The apparent need to accrue material wealth is often times a blinding/binding shackle self-applied to our society. We have a compulsion it would seem to achieve some mythical apotheosis of economic class preoccupied with what we don't have, what we think we need to have, get, instead of what truly matters in life: (IMO) happiness. Money materials, though it may be hard to believe, the two are not exclusive, needed for happiness, indeed life is what you make of it, what and how you choose to perceive it, the blindfolds of economy often times muddying this fact.   

6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?

The freed prisoner is enlightened to the true source of light, the sun, able to genuinely comprehend and contemplate whilst the prisoners are ignorant to such, captives of their own closed imaginations, only able to imagine reality, a mentally myopic manufactured machination, unable to see the "light", nor wonder why or what it truly is, ultimately numb and apathetic, in ignorant bliss to the actuality of reality.

7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?

Lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur by way of: 1. The cave dwellers can never be given the chance to experience the light. 2. Said prisoners can be exposed but ultimately shy away from the light to hide in the darkness of thier own ignorance.
8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?

Socrates states that the cave prisoners may only be freed by these means: The good fortune to somehow free themselves of their chain; The ability to listen to the freed prisoner and explore the world outside the cave. Thus it is suggested that only by cooperative contemplation combined with individual will and effort that we as people can come to intellectual enlightenment, freedom.


9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Yes i do agree. To employ a relevant example, the prisoners see what they describe is a "fire" yet we learn from the freed prisoners revelation that the fire is in fact the sun, that there is a world beyond the cave, not with shadows of animals, things, and beings but actually extant entities, not imaginary story-told creatures. Subsequent Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" distinguishes the mis-perceptions able to be manufactured by an unwilling, unenlightened state of mind, an imaginary appearance of reality in contrast to the clear, unobstructed, vision of actual reality as the freed prisoner witnesses outside the cave.

10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?

Not sure if it specifically stated exact metaphysical assumptions, but here's my own interpretation.

1)  Reality is indistinguishable from what it physically appears to be, therefore we could all easily be within an imaginary "matrix-esque" fictional reality, a dream, like brains suspended in a jar.

or

2) Everything existing is exactly what it appears to be unable to detour from that identity, everything is invariable reality.

But these are incredulously metaphysical, semantic conclusions. :)