POL113H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Political Philosophy
20 Aug 2013
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Document Summary
The cave: the illusion and the reality of education. We are all born into a condition where the meanings of the world are made for us. Plato believed that the philosophic contemplation of the reality of ideas was the highest form of reflection a human being could achieve. Plato"s allegory about the cave was a story of domination and oppression as well as education and liberation. Domination (human condition of self-enslavement); individuals (mis) perceive their condition to be free and in possession of the truth about the world they live in. Another kind of dominance; the application of raw, coercive and immediately perceptible force designed to lead the prisoner from a condition of ignorance to awareness (knowledge of the wider world) For plato, liberations means more than just living without shackles, (human more fully conscious of the world) The philosopher"s truth may also be a shadow on the wall of different realities.
