The prisoner's revelation

Lidia Debesay

Plato's Republic

Dr. Thomas

16 January 2016

The prisoner's revelation

Though the republic of Plato by Bloom illustrates the relationship between justice, injustice, and happiness through the use of Socratic dialogue, Plato's (Socrates mouthpiece) main goal is to accentuate the importance of education. He essentially gives an example of two separate accounts: one is the man with an education and the second one is a man without education. The man with education lives with an understanding of reality and the man without education lives with limited knowledge mainly fixated on its imagination and shadows of life. Ultimately, he leaves the decision to the reader as to which route they desire to follow. Plato strategically uses this Socratic dialogue to introduce very specific analogies and tales to emphasize on the importance of education for an individual and the community as well. According to Plato, education has very significant role in a man's life because it is the only key to acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is the absolute form of good and those who acquire the highest level of cognition are the ones fit to rule the city; Philosopher Kings.

            Generally speaking, books one to five compare and contrast justice and injustice. As Socrates, Adeimantus, Thrasymachus, and Glaucon go back in forth trying to figure out a concrete and strong definition of justice and injustice, Socrates introduces the just city/soul, the prisoner (cave allegory), the philosopher king, and most importantly the role of education. Education is introduced through the education of the guardians in which they play a huge in the just city/soul whereas the unjust city/soul lacks the presence of guardians.

In book three, Socrates suggests that education such as gymnastics, arts, music are necessary to the soul. Physical education is to maintain a healthy lifestyle and being able to be fit physically. Education of arts is to provoke citizen's imagination for better understanding. For instance, the children are molded by whatever their mothers teach them at a young age. In this case, naturally mothers tell their little children tales and stories to teach them right from wrong. This is a form of art and because of that education children are expected to use their education to discern right from wrong. Then, Glaucon argues that the gymnast more prone to be physically fit and sometimes cruel or harsh. On the other hand, the philosophical one would be softer but harmonized perhaps maybe too soft. So, then Socrates responds by suggesting that both these individuals must find balance with these two parts of the soul.  He says "…the soul of a man thus harmonized is moderate and courageous" (Bloom 89).  

That being said, both Socrates and Glaucon agreed that there are three parts of the soul. More specifically, the head where it is responsible for reasoning, knowledge, and truth. The chest is the spirit soul and is responsible for harmonizing. Lastly, the lower part of the body is the appetite soul. Because of this, all three parts of the soul have different agendas and desires. For instance, the appetite soul is wild and always lusting for fleshly things. Therefore, the head (reason) cannot control it by itself, but the spirit –with the right education- moderates these two parts of the soul. As a result, the appetite bows down to the spirit because it now has discipline.  For this reason, this is called the just city/soul whereas the unjust lacks balance and the right education.

With attention to education, Socrates skillfully paints the cave analogy to further explain his point. Glaucon becomes eager to grasp the concept as he waits for Socrates to explain it. Socrates begins the cave analogy as following; there are a group of men chained together and facing the wall deep in the cave. They have been there since birth and have never seen any daylight even though the entrance of the cave is open. These group of men is only bound to look forward and unable to look any other direction. Behind them, there are puppet handlers in which their shadows casts on the wall due to the reflection of fire. The prisoners have been exposed to this their whole life. Therefore, these shows are very real to them. Glaucon and Socrates are in an agreement up to this point. Then, Socrates continues to the next part of the cave. Now, let's take a freed man who was able to turn his neck and walks out the cave. At first, the man would be pained by the light and flees back to his comfort zone. He would flee back to where his surroundings feel familiar and the shadows were their reality.

So then, Socrates says what if "someone dragged him away from there by force along the rough, steep, upward way and didn't let him go before he had dragged him out into the light of the sun…" (Bloom 195). He would be resentful, upset, and feel powerless, but as soon as his eyes adjust to his surroundings, he began to see things as they are. Because the sun (the good) was so bright, he looked down and saw shadows of the trees, men, and things themselves. The analogy of a man being forcefully dragged out of the cave represents that only the man who is tired of being conditioned by the government (the system or the wrong education) and being a prisoner of the environment will be motivated to seek the truth. The idea of force represents the tiresome of being stuck in the same state and being told what or how to think. The motivation is what took the prisoner all the way out of the cave to the reality. As a result, he wants to truly become a just man and go back to teach other about the good.

Above all, this is the journey of progression to knowledge. Finally, the sun is the form of good, truth, and the reason behind the beauty in this world. The sun (the good) is the absolute truth and highest knowledge that can be acquired. So, now that the freedman has been exposed to the reality of the world (things), he goes back to the cave to share his experience with the prisoners. Surprisingly, they called him corrupted and delusional because their knowledge was very limited solely to the shadows in the cave. When the man was a prisoner he could only live off of his imagination; the shadows whereas outside the he was able to grasp the full understanding of things. The good is hard to see because "such men would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things" (Bloom 194). Only a few people who truly seek the truth are the only ones who are knowledgeable because they no longer walk around with blind eyes. They are enlightened and these individuals are the philosopher kings. For that reason, they are beyond qualified to rule the city because they know right from wrong.

Bloom's the republic of Plato can be read on different levels and is quite an interesting read. The book is intentionally put in Socratic dialogue to engage the reader in the conversation. Having Plato as Socrates' mouthpiece is a brilliant yet interesting creative. The book starts with talking about justice, but slowly the conversation changes to the soul, cave analogy, just and unjust city, and philosopher kings to highlight the significance of education. Socrates challenged a lot of well-known individuals to engage in these Socratic dialogues. Some did and some did not. The ones that did participate in these dialogues resulted in one of these two: they kept going back and forth or they quit in frustration. Some might even say this is probably why Socrates was killed. Furthermore, having education –Form of absolute knowledge and good- will result in a just city, harmonized soul, and with a philosopher king to rule the city!

Cited Works

·         Plato, and Allan Bloom. The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic, 1991. Print.