Plato's The Cave

 

Recently I finished reading Plato's the cave and man, I haven't had to read anything that sounds like this since high school when I ready the Odyssey. I think the confusing thing for me at first is that its presented as a conversation between two people, that's a little hard to get use to.

What I gathered as my understanding is that Glaucon is explaining how the arts, sciences and mathematics are important for a person to have knowledge of, but you can't force them to learn. By using the cave metaphor, you can't force someone out of the cave if they don't want to come out. You can't force someone to learn, advance, or become enlightened - you can only present the tools/resources for when/if they decide to use them. Our personal worlds can only expand through continued education.

When he talks about the one prisoner that came out and saw the truth outside the cave but wasn't believed by the fellow prisoners when he returned, it reminded me of Kandinsky's triangle/pyramid. They don't understand what he's saying because they aren't there yet, they are now on different playing fields in terms of they're knowledge of the world. In a sense the remaining prisoners are behind the times and they won't catch up until they decide for themselves to leave the cave.

I don't read a lot (besides comic books) so jumping back into reading was a struggle at first, but I'm happy to kind of strengthen my reading comprehension skills with books like these.