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Molly Giles
Maya Alapin
English 220
06 May 2015
The Original Western Views of Education: What Plato Thought
The Allegory of The Cave is a story many students are exposed to throughout their educational career. For me, it was in my junior year of high school. Although there are many ways to
analyze this allegory, I am going to be analyzing it through the lens of education. However, in
order to understand what Platos views on education were, you must first know a little bit about
Plato himself. Plato was believed to be born in the year 427 BCE, and is most commonly known
as a Greek philosopher. Plato worked closely with other Greek philosophers around that time. He
was believed to be highly influenced by his teacher, Socrates, and later Plato became the teacher
of Aristotle. One of his greatest achievements included founding the Academy of Athens. The
Academy served as a place for higher learning and was an institution that covered a plethora of
subjects from religion to love. However, Platos Academy was not a typical school such as we
have today. Instead, he would bring up and discuss problems in the real world, and use a variety
of mediums to decipher them. Overall, Plato was one of the most influential Ancient Greek
philosophers, and his works should not be disregarded.
Having knowledge on Platos life is key to understand his views on education, and
may even hint at the meaning of The Cave. In addition to having some background knowledge
on Plato, it is necessary to understand the allegory itself in order to analyze it through the educa-

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tional lens. First lets start with the prisoners. There are a group of prisoners who have been
locked up in a very dark cave for the majority of their lives. They are chained by their arms, legs,
and necks, restricting them from looking in any other direction besides forward. Behind the prisoners is a flaming fire, which causes shadows to be projected onto the wall ahead of them. People can put on puppet shows, and cast any type of shadow they want, and that is the only thing
that the prisoners are exposed to. To them, the shadows that are being casted is what the real
world is like, beyond the cave walls. Imagine being in the position of the prisoners. What would
you think of all the shadows? When analyzing the prisoners through the educational lens, I
imagine that these prisoners represented the uneducable and closed minded. Their visions of reality are false and confused, and they only have one way of looking at things. They are therefore
unable to have different perspectives. Because of the way the prisoners are chained up, they do
not even have the ability to look at themselves or others. This means they do not even know their
own identity, nor do they know their peers. Plato is not only alluding to the fact that the prisoners
represent the uneducable and closed minded, but also that they do not understand their full potential or abilities as a human being. Connecting this back to Platos biography, he probably felt this
way about people who did not want to attend the Athens Academy and who did not share the
same craving for knowledge as him, Socrates, and Aristotle. He also probably believed in the
concept of teamwork, and working together to obtain a goal, because he worked so closely
with his peers, students, and other philosophers.
Lets now take a closer look at the shadows being cast on the wall. The people in the cave
deliberately casted shadows of objects onto the wall for the prisoners to see. To the prisoners,

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this is all they know the outside world to be. Unfortunately, this perception of the real world is
false and misleading. To Plato, this could represent the uneducated now knowing what the world
of knowledge to be like. Although the prisoners were believed to be able to guess what the objects were and what they were used for, they had no way of knowing what their true purpose
was. Looking at the shadows through the lens of education, we can infer that the objects represent a world with educated beings, thriving with knowledge, and the shadows represent the misconceptions of the educable/ uneducated. In regards to his biography, Plato probably thought
that people who did not share his same passion for education, nor showed interest in his
Academy were closed minded, just like the prisoners.
Since we have discussed the prisoners and the shadows, we should now focus on the return of the released prisoner. After being entrapped for a good portion of his life, one of the prisoners is released to experience the real world. When he first enters the world, the sun is blinding
compared to the dreary darkness he has been exposed to for years. The escapee also realized that
the blinding, warm yellow sun was a key component to life. After getting a mere glimpse of what
the world outside of the cave, the former prisoner decided to return to his prison mates in the
gloomy cave. Through the educational lens and Platos views, he could be alluding to an educated, stubborn person deciding to free their mind and learn their full potential and meaning of their
existence in the world. Ultimately, I believe Plato feels that people in this world are meant to be
educated, and that it is the job of the educated to share their experiences with their peers. That
could have been one of his main reasons for the creation of the Academy of Athens. Maybe

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he would have even felt guilty for not using his knowledge and power to create such a prestigious institution.
A crucial part of The Allegory of the Cave is the return of the former prisoner. The former
prisoner did not absolutely need to go back to share his findings with his peers, but he chose to.
Once the former prisoner returned to share his knowledge of the outside world, they could not
understand what he was trying to tell them. This reminded me of another topic in history. Many
famous people in our past had ideas that were censored for being too extreme. For example,
Copernicus and Galileo were two scientists who were the first to state that the Earth was not the
center of the universe. Copernicus and Galileo were both members of the Catholic Church. Both
men had collected evidence that then proved that the sun was actually the center of the universe,
and all planets revolved around it. They then took their evidence to publish books, that of course
only educated people could read. Although there were a good amount of people at that time who
were not educated, and did not have reading skills, the Catholic Church was furious. They did
not want people to lose faith in God, and refused to believe Copernicus and Galileo, regardless of
all their extensive scientific research. The Catholic Church has always preached that God was the
creator of the universe, therefore everything in our solar system should revolve around it. The
Catholic Church censored Copernicus and Galileos findings, fearful that it may cause a societal
distrust in the Catholic religion. What Copernicus and Galileo went through can be related to the
way the former prisoner felt. The prisoners would represent the Catholic Church, because the
majority of them were uneducated but of course very stubborn. Copernicus and Galileos lives

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were at risk after their publishing of their books. Similarly, the prisoners in the cave threatened to
kill the former prisoner when he offered to set them free, fearful of what would come next.
Another example of censorship that can be compared to Platos Allegory of the Cave, is
Thomas Jefferson, and the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson is often argued to be one of the
most distinguished, and celebrated men in American history. However, many people do not know
of the issues he had with the Christian faith and the Bible. Thomas Jefferson actually took a
Bible, read through it, and cut out all the pieces he agreed with. He then took those pieces and
pasted them in a blank book of his own. This book of his creation was then titled The Jefferson
Bible. The Jefferson Bible was obviously looked down upon by the Church, and many people
found the Jefferson Bible extremely disrespectful to the Christian faith. Therefore it was censored by the Church. In this case, Thomas Jefferson can be related to the former prisoner, for his
creative thinking and open mindedness. Although religion is a personal belief system, and cannot
be necessarily proved wrong or right, Jefferson had his own reasons in why he believed what he
did. The Churchs closed mindedness and action of censorship can be compared to the prisoners.
The prisoners not only did not want to listen to the former prisoner, they were so stubborn and
uneducated, they did not have the ability to understand him anyway.
In my opinion, this is where the moral of The Allegory of the Cave is. The prisoners display distrust in their peer, but looking through the lens of education, this could represent a distrust in society and teachers. However, the fact that the prisoners are not only distrusting, but
threatening to take the life of their former peer is wretched. I believe Plato was trying to demon-

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strate a reality that was occurring during his lifetime, but harshly. This problem still exists in this
world, making the lesson of this story still prevalent.
Now that we have analyzed The Allegory of the Cave, let us now connect this to the modern day education system. It is evident that the majority of the population needs to attend college
and graduate with a degree in order to be financially stable and obtain their dream job. People
who are educated are highly respected in America, and around the world. However, are people
going to college for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons? Why did you/are you attending
college? Are you doing it to further expand your intellectual abilities and work toward your
dream job, or are you going because your parents want you to? I believe that Plato would approve of your college experience if you are taking classes outside your comfort zone, and are experiencing things that challenge you in all aspects of life. Because I am an education major, I believe it will be my responsibility to inspire my future students to rise to their full potential by taking advantage of the many educational opportunities our country has to offer. If I do not make
my future students fall in love with learning, and encourage them to WANT to keep going to
school, I will consider myself a failure. If The Allegory of the Cave taught me one big idea it is
never to take education for granted. Education allows people to think outside of the box, and
sparks curiosity, so why not take every opportunity we get to further educate ourselves?
Works Cited:
"Plato - Biography." Plato. The European Graduate School. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://ww w.e
gs.ed u/ libra r y/p lato/b io grap hy/>.
Cohen, Marc. "Allegory of the Cave." Washington University Faculty. Washington University, 7
Nov. 2013. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm>.

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"Plato: The Academy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/academy/>.