Plato's Allegory of The Cave Questions (And Notes)

NOTES:

Purpose:  "let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened"

• ignorant and happy vs educated and cynical
• keep the masses generally uneducated and happy so there is no rising up against the government
• light and sun = enlightenment/ education
• darkness and cave = ignorance and little known
• from cave to world:  a prisoner will be astonished with what surrounds him little by little
• from world to cave:  the philosopher will laugh at how he used to think
• 'young men to be warrior athletes'... for battle and olympics
• music and gymnastics doesn't educate as math and science would
• references Troy
• uses 'three fingers' as a metaphor for relativity and distance but ends with they are the same
• perception does however aid in education or enlightenment but different eyes have the ability to perceive subjects differently
• unity vs number... both seek truth, both are needed for mathematics 
• military and philosophy need math
• geometry is knowledge that is eternal and can create greater thinking/ philosophizing 
• astronomy only benefits the farmers for Socrates but Plato believes that it encourages enlightenment and the growth of the soul as he looks towards the heavens
• study of motions... physics?
• there must be connection between subjects in order to find some type of benefit in them
• math and english are two completely different arts
• This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. 
• By pursuing the arts, do prisoners gain release
• to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being
• intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows. 
• teachers and rulers must be "noble, generous, fairest, surest, and the bravest"
• the mind suffers more from studying than the body will from gymnastics
•  knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. 
  So school in general...
• A person who learns could become overly arrogant and rebelilious as they will see the flaws in society and want to rise against them
• Confused about ages in their life.

QUESTIONS

1. The Allegory of the Cave represents the ignorance of remaining unenlightened with no education and all the possibilities that occur when you see the light once you are educated.
2. The sun and light represent enlightenment or education.  The cave or darkness represents ignorance.  The water's reflection symbolizes a greater sense of yourself and your surroundings.
3. The cave is full of prisoners that can only believe what they see which is only shadows.  They are blind to the world outside the cave so they are ignorant to greater possibilities and the universe.  This all symbolizes that we must open our eyes to realize what is actually going on and happening around us instead of going through life being ignorant.
4. Shackles are what binds or limits us in life.  The cave represents a closed mind that isn't intent on learning.  With a combination of the two, it means, if you aren't ever seeking knowledge then you are essentially limiting your own life and causing your ignorance.
5. Today, people have this absurd insouciant attitude about the world and how it is run.  They don't care about education or about doing things for the greater good but rather stay where they are and do little to enlighten themselves.  This doesn't let you grow as a person or human being.  It just shackles you to the shell that could have had so many greater possibilities in life.
6. The freed prisoner will be able to interpret the world differently from the cave prisoner.  The freed person is enlightened to new perspective whereas the caver prisoner will always see the world one way.
7. Help...
8. Cave prisoners are free when they open their mind and release themselves from the shackles they were bound to.  Intellectual freedom is possible if you search for knowledge or answers and maintain a sense of enlightenment.
9. The appearance of something doesn't always suggest that it is real.  Take the shadows in the cave, yes in face the shadows were real but they are cast because of an object behind a light, not just present by themselves.  As a comparison to today's world, models and celebrities look increasingly perfect on magazine covers but in reality don't have that exact appearance.  They are real but the magazine has photoshopped out features that may be deemed 'ugly'.  
10. Help...