Plato's Allegory of the Cave

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?
It represents the way people don't believe in reality and don't understand it.

2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?
The prisoners are individuals trapped in society, the shadows are all the prisoners know, and the freed prisoners were meant to be leaders.

3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?
It suggest that students are the prisoners who are stuck in a routine and once the routine is over we won't know what else there is in life once we're freed from "shackles".

4. What do the imagery of shackles and the cave suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?
The shackles are to show that the prisoners are forced into a routine that is planned for them. The cave is to show the world that the prisoners know and nothing beyond it.

5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?
I think school shackles our minds into keeping us in a routine of attending school for so long with certain classes and what not. When we finally leave school we're not going to know what to do without that routine that was set for us.

6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoner.
The freed prisoner got to experience a new mind for themselves and the cave prisoner is still just thinking that the cave is all there is.

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

8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?

9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?
Yes I agree because something could be completely different from looking at it, but later discovered as not what was expected by it's appearance. For example by looking at some houses you would think it would look like a masterpiece inside, but in reality it may not even be nice inside.

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