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Aaron Wynn
Professor Maya Alapin
English 220
10 September 2015
Platos Desired Use For Education
In The Republic, Plato asserts several well-defined ideas about the processes
of education and education itself. In addition to creating a beautiful metaphor for
education, Plato asserts that education is sometimes a slow process and that nature
influences education. From this point, Plato stresses the importance of educating
children and reassures his audience that the process of education is potentially
frightening. Ultimately, Platos message of education is that it is a wonderful tool
and should be used as such to help enlighten others.
The Allegory of the Cave is a passage from Platos writing The Republic. In
this particular passage, Plato crafts an analogy by comparing prisoners in a cave to
lesser educated individuals in our world. The prisoners are held in place with chains,
unable to freely move. They face a wall in the cave which is dimly illuminated by a
fire burning behind them. The fire burns atop a wall adjacent to a street frequently
trafficked by people and animals, all of which the prisoners are unable to see since
they are incapable of movement. Therefore, the only images the prisoners see for
their entire lives are the shadows of the people and animals, and the cave wall
itself. The chains which hold them captive in the cave are meant to represent a
limited scope of knowledge, or a set of circumstances preventing the prisoners from
gaining additional or new knowledge. Plato takes his sustained metaphor one step
farther by asking his colleague what would theoretically occur if one of the prisoners

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were freed from his chains and experienced the same existence as the others in this
fictional world. The subsequent dialogue between Socrates and his friend Glaucon
allows the reader to gain insight into Platos ideas of education.
Plato asserts that becoming educated can be an indolent process when he
says If a person has sense hell remember that two things confuse the eyes:
moving from darkness into light and from light into darkness, and believe that the
same happens to the soul. (Plato 178). Again using light and darkness to symbolize
the contrast between knowledge and lesser knowledge, Plato describes moving
along the spectrum in either direction to be confusing to the eyes. This opinion
may resonate with some individuals; it can be easy to remain in ones own comfort
zone rather than attempt to learn something new or attempt to help someone else
learn. The author once more stresses the difficulties of acclimating to new
knowledge when he discusses how he believes a prisoner transplanted from the
cave into the above ground world would behave: I think hed have to become
habituated to see the things above. At first hed most easily make out the shadows,
then apparitions of people and things in water, then the things themselves. After
that hed contemplate the heavenly bodies and heaven itself by night, finding
starlight and moonlight easier to look at than sunlight and the sun. (Plato 176). The
habituation of new knowledge as Plato described it in this passage is a gradual
process, and ultimately Plato predicts that the prisoner would still be most
comfortable viewing the darker world of night rather than the harsh and new
daylight.
Another idea about education that Plato insists is that education is influenced
by nature, ones upbringing. According to Plato, If this part of such a nature had
been hammered from childhood, then the relatives of becoming would have been

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struck from it like lead weights. (Plato 179). Plato seems to assert that knowledge
gained in childhood remains throughout a lifetime and that truth in whatever
context is able to been seen distinctively. Conversely, Plato implies that without a
solid foundation of education in childhood, ones eyes are sharply focused
elsewhere.
Education during childhood varies tremendously across different cultures. In
some cultures, the parents of children are more involved in their education, and in
other cultures the parents hold schoolteachers primarily accountable for their childs
education. According to M.S. Rosenberg, D. L. Westling, and J. McLeskey, authors of
Special Education for Todays Teachers: An Introduction, most parents belong to
either the individualist perspective or the collective perspective when it comes to
their childs education. These two cultural perspectives have some similarities, but
do differ fundamentally. For example, the collective educational perspective calls for
allocation of learning resources, while the individual educational perspective calls
for students to have their own learning resources, which may be borrowed by other
students with permission. Also, in the collective school of thought teachers are the
primary educational instructors while in the individual perspective the parents role
in the childs education is vital, and the role of a teacher is secondary. Overall, the
collective perspective of childhood education is more social and interactive. It
seems as though Plato would subscribe to the collective school of thought, since he
believes that humans should help their peers to break free from chains and be lead
into higher knowledge.
This perspective maintained by Plato is again mirrored by some of the ideals
John Locke writes of in his book Some Thoughts Concerning Education. According to
Locke, the goal of education should be to mold an individual of solid moral ground

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and good character rather than to form a scholar, upholding education in the
more traditional sense of its purpose. Locke also believes that the education
process should be enjoyable and not seen as a chore: I have always had a fancy
that learning might be made a play and recreation to children: and that they might
be brought to desire to be taught (Locke 148). Plato certainly holds the same
beliefs, as his entire allegory is essentially a plea to use education as a tool to help
others. This use of education is ethical, and the same thing Locke wanted for
education.

Finally, Plato warns that education can be frightening. The author ponders
what might happen if the prisoner who was unchained and experienced world
outside the cave were to return and interact with the other prisoners, still chained
inside the cave. And if he had to evaluate those shadows down there in
competition with the perpetual prisoners, then in that not short time of habituation
in which his eyes were dimmed and unrecovered, hed make a fool of himself and
theyd say he came back from above with ruined eyes and the trip wasnt even
worth the attempt. And if they could get their hands on the one who was trying to
release them and lead them upward, wouldnt they kill him? (Plato 177). This
passage not only illustrates how scary education can be for some, but also
highlights the power of chains. For the prisoners in this allegory, they would murder
someone rather than experience something new; they fear the unfamiliar. However,
this characteristic of education is contrary to the way Locke believed education
should be experienced. Today, many educational institutions across the world are
utilizing advanced technologies and new techniques to help make learning fun for
individuals so that education is associated with fun experiences from a young age.

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According to C. M. Rubin, educational instructors in Finland have recently had great
success in using education-oriented technology such as mobile games and
applications to teach school children new material. Learning in the unconventional
way detailed by Rubin in her article The Global Search For Education: Fun and
Learning, seems to alleviate some of the fears that may be associated with
education which Plato writes about. This is accomplished by making learning a more
enjoyable, overall fun experience just as Locke and Plato believed it should be.
From Platos various ideas about education, it can be deduced that Plato
views education as a difficult but rewarding process, as well as a responsibility.
Despite the difficulties of and possible resistance to education (Platos example of
the prisoners wanting to kill an individual who would enlighten them), the author
still urges his audience to strive to educate others and bring them out of the cave.
The amount which Plato discusses this process, as well as the symbolism he uses to
represent knowledge and lesser knowledge (light and darkness or dim light), makes
education seem to be more of a responsibility than a privilege afforded to those with
easier chains to break. Additional thoughts on early introductions to education
shared by both Plato and Locke suggest that childhood education is particularly
paramount in the educational process. Plato strongly believes in educating the child
from a young age with the mentality of sharing this education with others over the
course of a lifetime. The prisoners in Platos allegory were not described as being of
a particular age, which could signify Platos belief that individuals of all ages may
become educated, and that it is never too late to be released from ones chains or
to help someone else break their chains. Ultimately, Plato describes education as an
engine to be used to enlighten others.

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Works Cited

Locke, John, John W. Yolton, and Jean S. Yolton. Some Thoughts Concerning
Education. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. Print.
Plato, C. J. Emlyn-Jones, and William Preddy. "Book 7." Republic. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard UP, 2013. N. pag. Print.
Rosenberg, Michael S., David L. Westling, and James McLeskey. Special Education
for Today's Teachers: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2011.
Print.

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Rubin, C. M. "The Global Search for Education: Fun and Learning." The Huffington
Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Mar. 2014. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.