Forrest Simpson
Professor Jim Read
English Composition
21 June 2015

Plato strongly believed that there are four levels of knowledge, and to understand anything, you first have to understand everything. In Plato’s Book VII of “The Republic” he stages his metaphor “The Allegory of the Cave” to describe the four levels of knowledge. In “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato portrays four different stages in a cave. These four different stages are metaphors that describe what he believed to be the different stages of knowledge: imagination, thought, understanding and good. He illustrates his metaphor by depicting a group of prisoners who have spent their entire life in the darkened cave and their passage through the distinct stages of the cave, with them starting at the lower stages of the cave and proceeding to the higher stages and eventually out of the cave, however Plato believed that we as humans are not capable of reaching the last stage of knowledge (good) and that we all stop somewhere along the first 3 stages. Just as the prisoner has to reach an understanding of the sun to start learning anything, we must first use education to understand the highest level of knowledge, and then we can start really learning. The cave is built with its mouth towards the light, so that the light reaches threw the cave to the wall at the end. There is a group of humans that sit facing the wall. They have been in the cave since birth and their legs and necks are bound by chains so that they can only look forwards to the wall, and not behind them or to their sides. Behind and above them raised way with a low way built along it, with a fire on one side and the prisoners on the other side facing the wall. There is statues along the top of the wall, which are operated by a group of people hiding behind the wall. The fire creates light which casts shadows along the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners have never seen daylight, and have only seen the shadows that are cast by the statues. To them these shadows are real world, and they believe them to be real life objects as Plato describes this understanding by saying “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” The prisoners bound in front of the wall are the first stage of the cave, and it is the imagination stage of knowledge. The people of this stage use their imagination to interpret concepts to elements of their culture. For example if their understanding of a shape would be a rough outline of it, not understanding anything about the shape, but only imagining how it looks. The next stage of the cave begins when a prisoner is released from his chains, and he is forced to stare at the fire and statues. "And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?" –Plato At first the prisoner will be confused because of the statues and light, but he then understands that the shadows that he has been staring at his entire life are created by the statues and fire, and he now believes that the statues and fire are most real things in the world. This depicts the next stage of knowledge, thought. The prisoner has not been exposed to the daylight yet and he beliefs that this is the entire world. His understands real objects exist, like the statues, but is unaware that there is a world beyond the cave. The realizes that the shadows are created by fire and the statues, and that the shadows which he once believed to be the most real objects in the world, are just mere reflections of the statues. He can now grasp different ideas but he is limited by not being able to understand them. If he were to draw a circle he would use a compass to draw it, not understanding how it worked, but he was able to draw an accurate circle. The prisoner is then drug out of the cave, and into the real world where he is forced to see all the sun shines on. "He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven. And he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?" –Plato At first the prisoner has a hard time taking in the new “realities” that he is exposed to. At first he can only see the shadows, but as his eyes grow accustomed to the sight he can see all of the real objects, and realizes that the statues were just copies of these real objects. "Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another, and he will contemplate him as he is.” –Plato After the prisoner can see the outside real world he looks up at the sun. He realizes that the sun is the good and without it he would not be able to see anything and no life would exist without it. This stage of knowledge is understanding, because his thoughts are infused with knowledge of the good. Just as he understands that the sun is what causes this world to exist, he would understand that formulas are what allow the circle to exist. Once the prisoner can understand that the sun is what causes the world to exist, he can start to understand anything.
Along the prisoner’s journey through the different stages of the cave, his interpretation of reality slowly changed, and what he thought was real changed along every stage. At first he thought the shadows were real, and then he learned that they were copies of the statues which were real. After leaving the cave he realized that the statues were mere copies of objects of the real world, and then he discovered that the sun allowed everything to exist. Once he understand this he could really start understanding anything. For the prisoner to understand anything he had to understand everything, and to understand everything he had to understand anything. Just as the prisoner has to reach an understanding of the sun to start learning anything, we must first use education to understand the highest level of knowledge, and then we can start really learning.