I read “Allegory of the Cave” and thought it was a great piece. It was a narrative about a discussion Plato had. In this discussion he describes a situation where people spend their lives in a cave and one man is set free. Throughout the story he makes the point that the reality of one person isn’t necessarily the reality of another. I also read “The Banking Concept of Education” and I believe that it had many smart ideas. The author tries to make the point that the system of education where the teacher simply “dumps” knowledge onto the students. He then poses a better solution to the problem, a solution in which both the students and teacher benefit and learn more than just facts.
Both of these essays are focused on the philosophy of though and perception. In “Allegory of the Cave” it is implied that greater understanding of life in general comes from having a clearer picture of reality. “The Banking Concept of Education” expresses the theory that to have a true education students must see the world not as static and filled with facts, but as a dynamic process which if full of problems and solutions.
It isn’t too complex of a task to memorize facts and equations but I think true advancement can only be attained once an important ability is acquired. This ability is being able to understand that what one thinks is reality isn’t necessarily what is truly real. The reality that a person perceives is called a paradigm. A paradigm can inhibit progress if somebody “knows” that something is impossible. An example of this can be seen in the cave that Plato describes. The people in it believed that what they saw were the only things that existed and they would never be able to move or leave. Perhaps if they had believed that there was possibly something else out there and escape was possible their thinking wouldn’t be so limited and they could have found a way out. I think a good lesson to be learned from these stories is that things are never as limited as they seem if you learn to entertain the idea that the impossible is possible.
4 comments:
Ben. You really process the material from the two articles superbly. In fact, it sounds like you have some other readings that have given you the knowledge you bring to bear on the discussion of the two texts. You might want to consider a synthesis paper addressing these two essays and some other philosophical text you've come across. Your last paragraph is a very interesting synthesis regardless. Excellent.
I really like the way you compared the two stories. I also agree with your interpretation that one of the most important messages in the stories is that one can turn the impossible into something that is possible. However, one must attain the knoweledge for themselves before they can move onto making the impossible possible.
BTW, what is this artist's name again? I want to look him up...
His name is Alex Grey. If you go to his site (www.alexgrey.com) and click the "Paintings" link then the "Progress of the Soul" you can see a decent amount of his paintings. Most of his stuff is centered around this same basic concept, very psychedelic/spiritual/transpersonal works.
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