Socrates, & Plato's Allegory of the Cave (week 1)

In "The Allegory of the Cave" Socrates suggests that without philosophical education we are all like the prisoners in the cave. What are your thoughts on this? How is philosophy supposed to be liberating? Do you think Socrates is right to be so pessimistic about life without philosophy?

I do agree with Socrates, in a way, when he says that without philosophical education we are like the prisoners in the cave. The only question for me is ... is that necessarily so bad? We all know the expression "ignorance is bliss". Maybe for some people this can mean ignorance of anything other than the safe, limited notions they have about the world, and their existence, and what it all means. There probably is a sort of a bliss in never having doubts about the bigger things - like whether or not there's a God, or whether it means anything to be alive. If you are the sort of person who just accepts what ever you've been told since you were born, and you don't have the curiosity to really think about these things, and maybe even consider changing your mind about them, then you are like one of the prisoners in Plato's cave - but maybe you are more content than the person who struggles with these unanswerable questions their whole life and can never be sure they've discovered "the truth".

How is philosophy supposed to be liberating? Accepting everything without question limits you mentally - doors in your mind remain closed, and only the well worn paths are trodden, over and over again. If you allow yourself to consider ideas and possibilities other than those you have always held - if you really subject something you believe in to some scrutiny - and after honestly examining it closely, you can acknowledge that you can't really believe it anymore, then you are in effect freeing your mind. You free yourself from the misinformation, and then you can start to look for something real to believe in. On the other hand, if you can honestly say you still believe in the truth of your argument, there's a liberation in that too - you can feel free to live your life in accordance with your well-thought out principles. Philosophical discussions bring you closer to the truth of things, and as Jesus (the philosopher) said, "the truth shall make you free" :) Trying to get closer to something that actually feels completely true to you, through thought and debate, is a challenging yet worthwhile exercise. It will expand your mind - and anything that expands your mind is a liberating thing.

The account of Socrates's death shows us another way of looking at the concept of liberation through philosophy. Socrates didn't fear death, or any other harm that might come to him, because he believed that through philosophy he had found his true self, and he believed it wasn't possible for others to physically harm this true self. If he didn't fear any physical harm then he would have felt totally at liberty to think, talk, and teach his philosophies, and to question all the dusty fossilized beliefs that others around him held. He wanted to get people thinking instead of just acting like sheep (Socrates was like the prisoner who got out of the cave but came back to tell the others what he had seen) and the fact that he no longer cared what happened to his body would have been very liberating for him.

Is Socrates right to be so pessimistic about life without philosophy? I don't think everyone needs to be pondering life's mysteries all day, but I think it's a more interesting world because some people are doing that, and the rest of us can tap in every now and again to see what's being said, and maybe even join the conversation. Philosophical thought and dialogue keeps people engaged in life and the world, and makes us think about how we should live in the world, and I think that's a good thing. Without deep, analytical thoughts and conversations, as a species, we'd probably all just be clubbing each other over the head and scratching ourselves.