That Plato Show

I sat myself down to take in book VII of Plato's Republic last night. Deciding to give myself a night of sleep to soak it in, I waited until today to comment on it.

First off, I kept getting a visual of Socrates and Glaucon sitting around a table in a basement, heavy smoke filling the air. We see only one at a time, and the camera spins quickly as they trade responses. Basically "That '70s Show".

Anywho, this was a bit of a beast to read. I found myself constantly rereading short sections, as the syntax is a but confusing to someone who's used to reading more modern texts. From what I gathered though, there are two MAIN bits to this book. First, the shadow cave which represents pursuit of truth and how it changes someone. Second, they (they being Socrates and Glaucon) begin to discuss the merits of teaching certain subjects and in what way they should be taught.

Unless I miss my mark, the bit about the cave seems very logical. Much like the prisoners in the cave who can see only shadows, we assume that what we initially observe is truth. That there may be more to what we see or experience usually escapes us initially. The part that really stood out to me most is the discomfort experienced as one learns to look past the observable, physical world. The majority of people DON'T see past what's presented to them, and that's a fact easy to forget for those of us in higher education (not saying everyone who goes to university is automatically HIGHER than anybody, but the likelihood is greater that a college student, especially one in New Media, has different view on the world). You have to be prepared to take a lot of crap from others for your views if they deviate from the norm. But we can't lose heart and just give up, accepting everything as it is, for that's doing a great disservice to our true selves.

Man, this post is getting a bit heavy. But moving on...

I couldn't quite get into the next section of the reading. Summed up, it seemed to say that it's more important to teach WHY something is, rather than simply THAT it is. This is sort of a practical application of the above cave story. It eerily mirrors what I find to be one of the failings of our New Media program at IUPUI, which is that often the teaching is limited to a piece of software rather than the concepts more essential to our creations (which then leads a student neutered as they're faced with a dead end of sorts) . This isn't always the case, but it's a dangerous pitfall that could easily overtake a student. Plato seemed to understand that a student should focus on the bigger picture of the world rather than just simply take what's handed to them at face value.

Finally, Plato suggests that the best method of trying to approach truth is through the dialectic method of education. Socrates was famous for this, using debate and conversation as a means to uncover fallacies and truth. I agree that it's useful, but I don't think it is the one single ultimate teaching method. Sometimes, the best way to learn is to do - jump in there, push all the buttons, turn all the levers, kick things, etc. etc. until you get to know whatever it is you're figuring out.

For all I know I've butchered the intended meaning of the reading. Even if I have misinterpreted something though, I feel that I've bettered myself by just reading this and attempting to latch on to some new ways to think about things.