Abstract
In this essay, the author argues that no person can just step into self-directed learning without a mentor who guides students into learning. Learning is an unending relational process, based on trust, that begins in wonder. The chapter examines arguments from Plato, Polanyi, Pieper, and others who contend that learning is other-centered rather than self-directed, and as such, learning demands the need for guides—either as individuals, books, or sets of “guiding questions” that push us to grasp a larger, systemic view of the world.
TopOverview Of Plato’S Allegory Of The Cave
Plato uses Socrates, his former teacher, as his spokesperson in his multiple dialogues, including Republic, where we find this allegory. Overall, Republic addresses how, in an idealized society, a sense of balanced justice can be achieved and society can be ordered. In Books 5 through 7, Socrates and Glaucon dialogue about the role of the philosopher-as-king in an ideal society. They agree this ruler should not be a tyrant but someone who rules based on reason and wisdom. This is where the role of learning and gaining wisdom is emphasized as preparatory training for those who will become the philosopher-rulers.
Socrates opens his narrative in Book 7 describing a group of prisoners who are chained together at the back of a large cave. They are unable to either turn their heads to look side-to-side or look behind them. They can only see shadows cast on a wall in front of them. They do not realize these shadows come from a large fire and people who walk to and fro in front of the fire carrying objects on their heads. The prisoners hear voices from the people talking but presume the shadows produce the sounds.
Socrates contends it takes one of the prisoners being freed and dragged up the steep steps to see the fire before the prisoner sees the actual people and the fire that produces the shadows. It then takes additional dragging to pull the prisoner up and out of the cave to see the actual sun, actual trees, actual water, and other people. But the former cave-dwelling prisoner now has two problems: He is not used to seeing real things and the sunlight hurts his eyes. Over time his eyes adjust to the bright sunlight, but he still has a mental difficulty. The prisoner is so accustomed to the shadows of the cave and so blinded by cave-life as to be unable to see much at all—at first only recognizing the shadows from objects but then, gradually, able to see the actual things themselves. After a while, the former prisoner decides to go back to the people in the cave and convey these experiences and insights that come from outside the cave. When he arrives back, he is again unable to see much—now because he is unaccustomed to the dark—and he stumbles until his eyes adjust. When he talks with his former friends, still chained together at the back of the cave, they think he is insane. They do not want to listen to him; they want to kill him. This is analogous to what the Athenians did to Socrates, Plato’s teacher, years before Plato writes this. I will return later in this chapter to this allegory and relate its significance to my argument.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Self-Determinism: The idea that each person sets his or her own course and “ends”/goal in life and is not controlled by any outside events, people, or situations.
Mythos: Greek; literally for myth, story, or narrative; the narrative or story that is the basis for one’s worldview or framework for interpreting the world.
Epistemic: Adjective; of or relating to knowledge or knowing.
Autonomy: Greek; literally, self-law or self-rule. The idea that people rule themselves and are not responsible to any others for what they do or what they decide is right or wrong.
Phenomenology: The understanding of human experience or consciousness of a reality as experienced from a first-person point of view.
Therapeutic: Philip Rieff’s claim that people consider their feelings more real, significant, and important than the material reality that exists external to them. The therapeutic triumphs over material reality, religion, and science.
Dialectic: The use of questions, answers, claims, and counterclaims in a dialogue, between two or more people, that seeks the truth about an idea, event, or object.
Epistemology: The study of what is accepted as knowledge and the process of knowing.
Individualism: The idea that people are unique, separate, disconnected beings; often contrasted with the idea of a community—a group of people in close, intimate connection.