The Allegory of the Cave by Plato

[Guest]

Unlike his mentor Socrates, Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. In the [I]Allegory of the Cave[/I], Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The [I]Allegory[/I] presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.

[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-DRdTsnbr0[/URL]

[Guest]

[CENTER][B]'One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been Bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the Bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The Bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge - even to ourselves - that we've been so credulous.' [/B][/CENTER]
[CENTER][B]- Carl Sagan[/B][/CENTER]