Plato: Education, Divied Line Argument an Allegory of Cave

INTRODUCTION:

Every action is the sign of ones philosophy for example if the persons have islamic philosophical thoughts then his action become much more religious, he tries to earn money by true efforts . Like this liberism makes the man to justify his efforts. The countrys educational system revolves around his philosophycal approach. Lets unpack the word ‘philosophy’.

The word philosophy is the combintion of two latain words ‘PHILO’S’  means ‘LOVE’ and ‘SOPHIA’ means ’WISDOM’. Philosophy is defind by many philosophers as the search for truth (Socrates). It is also said that philosophy is the only way to get the deepest information about this world. Plato in his famopus book ‘REPUBLIC ‘said that philosophy is the contineous study of life, it starts with curiosity. According to Herbert Spencer philosophy is the organized and complete knowledge. It answers the questions related to thought. In short we can say that philosophy is the only way to understand the secrets of this world.

Here  in this assignment it has been tried to elaborate the philosphical thoughts of Plato, John Dewey. Aristotle and Roussaeu and see their implications on our educational system. In  conculusion it has been tried  to analyse some of our mishaps in our educational system.

PLATO’S “REPUBLIC”:

Plato is the sun of wealthy and influential Athens parents.plato begins his philosophycall career as a student of socrates . After the death of his Master he travelled to Egypt and Italy studied their and then after returning to Athens he established his own school of philosophy.

            Republic is his masterpiece.It begins with the Socrates conversation about the nature of justice then proceeds towards the virtues of justice wisdom, courage and moderationas they appear both in individual human being and in a society as awhole. The dialogue concludes with thr review of various forms of government, an explicit descriptio of the ideal state, in which only philosophers are fit to rule.

ALLEGORY OF CAVE:

The allegory of the cave also known as the the analogy of cave or Plato’s cave. The concept has been presented in his BOOK VII . it is in the form of dialogue between Plato’s teacher ‘Socrates’  and plato’s brother ‘Glaucon’. The concept begain with the explanation of the cave where prisioners are lived chained to the wall of the cave for all their lives. The prisioners can only see the shadows projected on the wall of the cave, of the things passing by the fire. The prisioners give the name to these shoadows. The prisioners thought that this is the only reality. The actual thought begain when one of the prisioner get relief from the cave and find that the reality is some thing else thean the mere shadows which he has been seening up till now. Then he returned back in the cave and tries to explain the reality to thoes prisioners but it is beyontheir imagination so they sickly rejected the reality.

The prisioner who get freedom and  find the reality is philosopher king according to the Plato. In this way he tries to give the idea of realty and truth.

ANALOGY OF DIVIDED LINE:

Plato has given the concept of divided line in his book THE REPUBLIC . he presented this meta physical idea as for seperate but logically connected models of the world.  Lets take a line

                       

                        A             B                   C                D                          E

AC is taken as representing the visible world and CE as representing the intelligible world.

Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, ansd divide each of them again in the same proportion. The  two unequal proportions are said to be visible and intelligible world. Visible world again divided into two unequal parts shadows and reflections of the physical world and sensible world or physical things themselves. the other two divisions of the line are mathematical reasoning and then the last part of the line is phiosophycall understanding or intelligible world. The following table summerises the analogy of the divided line

segment	Type of knowledge	Type of object
DE	Philosophical understanding (noesis)	Ideal form , especially the good.
CD	Mathematical reasoning, including theoritical science	Abstract mathematical objects, such as numbers and lines.
BC	Beliefs about physical things , including empirical science.	Physical objects
AB	Opinion, illusions	Shadows and reflections of physical objects.

IDEALISM:

Platos philosophy talked about the system of education which could be called as ‘idealism’. He saw the education as the responsibility of state and childerens are not only of their parents but they are the reponsibility of state. Plato writes in his book “lets describe the education of our men”. He beleived in gymnastic for the body and music for the mind. He recommanded the same for the women. He wants every boy and girl to be educated up to its limit. He recommended that the education could be started at the age of five. He give the following stages of education.

Organisation and curriculum:

·         5-9 years based on music only,

·         9-18 years elementry co-education. Mathematics, poetry, music and literature.

·         18-20 years compulsory physical education and military training

·         21-30 years advance course in mathematics, geometry, astronomy and harmonics.

·         31-35 years dialectics, meta physics, logic and philosophy.

·         36- 50 accept junior position in army and completed his theoritical and practical education

·         50-63 serve the nation (Philosopher King). According to plato it is the peak of the educational system. Dialects or philosopher king  are the intellectuals who can change the definition of any thing or redefine the concepts.  they search for truth.

In this way he give the complete educational philosophy. He put the basic aim of education to develop the philosopher King who ruled the state nd it could be any body who reached this stage. Plato beleived that talent was distributed non- genetically and thus must be found in children born in any social class. At each level of education there is a selection and futher education would be offered to only thoes who are suitable. It is a point of great criticism on Platos philosophy that it is not necessary that the talent would be highligted in any perticular age but it could be raised at any stage of life.

Plato divided the hole society on the basis of their profession into three classes. Working class who have wealth,and have desires need self control and temperence to lead a succesful life, worriers who have honour and courage and then ruler who are the people having wisdom and  knowledge, they are actually philosophers. The ruled the courtry and Plato defined the justice in the sence to place the person on suitable position and if the right positions  is not given to the deserved ones then the crises and injustice appears. Contribution of Plato in scientific subjects is little but his idea on education inspired his followers to explore new dimensions in education

IMPLICATIONS IN EDUCATION:

The ruler of the state should be most literate person of the time. We can divide the human being on the basis of their intelligence, and give them role in the society according to their abilities and capabilites. Platos philosophy explains that this world in which we are moving is the image of some perfect world.  So our efforts should be towards that ideal state where justice could be possible with each individual.