“How can I have knowledge?” is the new overarching question of this unit. In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, he writes about Platonic Epistemology. Plato states that knowledge of Platonic ideas is innate and when one learn these ideas he/she is simply “recalling” them. No one ever sees these ideas, they see the physical representation. What does that mean for us? All these years of schooling and studying yet all we have learned are simple physical representations of ideas which we thought we had mastered. Many believe they have mastered Algebra, Chemistry, or Grammar. However Plato refutes this and explains that a philosopher is one “… who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied,” (Furman 189). No one has ever mastered any form of knowledge and if they believe so they are simply ignorant and in “the shade of the cave”.
To better explain his argument, Plato creates a metaphor, “… humans being housed in an underground cave, which has a long entrance open towards the light and as wide as the interior od the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained, so that they cannot move and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning around their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prison there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets,” (190). Personally, I found the metaphor depressing but an extremely accurate portrayal of the ignorance of human beings. When we learn about triangles and how there are different types, have three sides, and etc, we assume after a certain point that we have mastered the idea of a triangle. However what we do not understand that this is just the physical representation of the true form of a Triangle. We learned the about the “shadow” of triangle. We only have a shadowy glimpse of the truth, the tip of the iceberg.
How do we attain true knowledge? Metaphorically, Plato states that we must break the chains on our legs and necks and turn our heads around. Instead of staring at the shadows we must look at the objects themselves. This may confuse us and make us uncomfortable, causing us to take refuge in our old, altered reality. Our reality is not the vase, the table, or the book in front of us but rather ideas like Justice, Triangles, or Beauty. They exist whether humans do or do not. To attain true knowledge we must explore and ask questions and explore more. We must be thirsty for knowledge but with all of this we need to be humble. Plato explains that the first step to attaining true knowledge is to understand that we know very little in a world where there is an infinite amount of knowledge.
In class many people struggled to understand what true knowledge was and how we knew it even existed. Some argues that ideas were created by humans such as 2+2=4. However we discovered that believing these ideas were human ideas and only existed because of humans was ignorant to believe. Humans try to learn and understand these ideas however we do not create these ideas. They already existed; even when there were dinosaurs 2+2 still equaled 4. The class also struggled to grasp the idea of true Beauty, many believed that beauty laid in the eyes of the beholder. However B-Dan and the text explained beauty may exist but it isn’t the true form. The class also discussed ignorance surrounding many topics because people tend to live in their own bubbles.
Living in America, where the media constantly feeds us stories and news, we are subject to “shadowy” glimpses into situations occurring near and far from where we live. These glimpses are controlled by what the media chooses to show and even manipulate. An example of this is the media coverage on ISIS, an extremist group located in Syria/Iraq. Almost all news outlets continue to report this group as an Islamic group however they don’t represent any accurate teachings of Islam. Now a minority of people actually realize this because they possess knowledge of the situation from other factual sources. To equate ISIS to Islam is the equivalent of saying the KKK and Westboro Baptist Church represent the core teachings of Christianity.
Here is a satirical critique on the Media’s coverage of ISIS:
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