POL200Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Polis, Timocracy, Oligarchy
Document Summary
Explains the education and lack of education to human nature. Everyone begins their lives chained to a position of ignorance, and it is through education that we can break these chains. (ascending up divided line) Imagine a dark cave, and there is a way up to the light all along its widths. Imagine these individuals are chained so they can only see the back wall of the cave. It is not totally dark though, there is a fire behind them, creating some light. Between the individuals and the fire there is a higher wall, along the wall there are artifacts being carried back and forth. Since the prisoners are chained, all they see are the shadows. All they see is the shadows; this is the reality. Socrates says these people are like us, all we see is the shadows of the real thing, not the real thing.
