English paper Essay

Will Durant, a U. S author and historian, writes, Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. This come tor that all(a) in all the acquaintance people once had is misleading to what the truth genuinely is. Similarly, in Platos Allegory of the Cave and Frederick Douglasss Learning to prove and Write a painful mental process of take oning knowledge through all the ignorance is described. Plato describes a prisoner discharge on a journey to gain knowledge that is behind him, after he was stuck staring at a wall of shadows his whole life.He goes back to mark the separate prisoners of his discoveries and they urgency to kill him. Douglass is a slave who learns to call for and write, going through stages to fulfill each step. As he begins gaining knowledge he finds the truth some slavery which startles him. Socrates idea that gaining knowledge is a difficult journey to assay because by doing so it changes the way people see the world, as proven by Douglass e xperiences. In Platos Allegory of the Cave, Socrates illustrates a metaphorical story well-nigh attaining knowledge. He describes a sabotage with men who are set up, prisoners of the cave.They face a wall that is all they can see because they cannot move their heads. They cannot even project behind them to see a walkway and a fire. As a person passes on the walkway, a shadow is intercommunicate onto the wall in front of the prisoners this is all they know. Only the shadows are what is hearty to them because its all they receive ever known. Socrates says, How could they see anything precisely the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? (Plato 479). The main point is that people cannot understand anything except what is cosmosness projected right in front of them.Socrates point is that society has a limited understanding of knowledge, and is ignorant about what is beyond the surroundings. To acquire knowledge of the truth beyond the cave, one prisoner is fr eed. As his eyeball lay to the light, he starts to see the real objects from the images that are projected onto the wall. He understands how the shadows were a false truth and just an illusion and he feels bad for the other prisoners still stuck in the cave. He understands that they are not seeing the truth. Socrates states, What he saw before was an illusion.So theprisoner returns to tell the others about his k pertly knowledge, unless they couldnt understand what they were being t grey. The other prisoners bequeathing not accept the knowledge the escapee has learned and my even put him to death. But the chained prisoners dont understand that the whole world away(p) the cave is more real than the false illusions, or the shadows being projected onto the walls. nine doesnt want to accept knew knowledge people often place upright changing what they know. Socrates prisoner goes through stages or the process of knowledge, which is also shown in Douglass.In the allegory, when the prisoner first leaves the cave he stares at the lie and cannot see it takes time to get accustomed to the brightness. Socrates describes, And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves (Plato 480). In time the prisoner will begin to understand the realities (Plato 480) that he is veneering by going through the stages. This is shown in Douglass as well. Douglass is first taught to empathize by Mistress Hugh, but then she refuses to teach him. So Douglass turns to kids that he makes friends with to finish teaching him to read.Douglass Sates, The light broke in upon me by degrees (Douglass 73) in other words, education is being achieved in stages. This is akin the prisoner going through a process of gaining knowledge. Once Douglass is introduced to reading, he teaches himself to write by tricking the white boys into helping him learn. The process endured outside the cave by the prisoner- or the pr ocess endured by Douglass- will be tedious (Douglass 74), and take time, but steps must be taken to gain any knowledge. The process of gaining knowledge can be painful Socrates idea of pain by being novice is played out in Douglass.When the prisoner is in a cave he is comfortable with the shadows on the wall and his surroundings, but if the prisoner is freed he will feel pain 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 outside(a) to take refuge in the objects of visions which he can see (Plato 480). The new knowledge that he will gain is so different than what he is used to. This can be seen likewise in Douglass as well. When Douglass learns to read he learns the truth of slavery which tormented (Douglass 71) him. He writes, It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but no ladder upon which to get outThis is standardised to the prisoner leaving the cave. He understands slavery and his rights are taken away, they ways that they are taken from their homes and made into nothing is so cruelly wrong. This causes him long pain the only thing he has to look forward to is the go for of being freed. Because becoming enlightened is a painful process, many will resist or challenge what they believe, as illustrated by Socrates and Douglass. After the prisoner goes on his journey of being enlightened, he goes back to the cave to tell his friends what he has learned, but they reject him.Socrates says, If any one tried to fall behind another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch he offender, and they would put him to death (Plato 482). The other prisoners think he is being ill-considered (Plato 481) and want to put him to death for his story about life outside the cave. They dont understand that they are the ones trapped in ignorance and the freed prisoner is telling them the truth. This also plays out in Douglass. Mistress Hugh began by being a caring lady and teaching Douglass how to re ad, but slavery in brief made a big impact on her.I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her disquietude ( Douglass 70). The violence she projected toward Douglass when snatching the paper from him shows the resistance she now has toward him being educated. many a(prenominal) will resist being enlightened because society doesnt like to change what they already know. While society tends to resist enlightenment, those who are enlightened cannot return to their former ignorance, and pities others who are stuck there which is shown in Plato and Douglass.When the prisoner went on his journey after being freed from the cave he learned all about the false notions he was living in the cave. Socrates says, And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would preen himself on the change, and pity them? (Plato 481). The prisoner feel s bad for the others because they are trapped in ignorance and cannot see the truth like he has. This is also shown in Douglass.