Plato, John Dewey, Maria Montessori - Essay Example

'Humans had to travel from the visible realm of image-making and objects of sense to the intelligible, or invisible, the realm of reasoning and understanding. "The Allegory of the Cave" symbolizes this trek and how it would look to those still in a lower realm. Plato is saying that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our Cave. The things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall. Just as the escaped prisoner ascends into the light of the sun, we amass knowledge and ascend into the light of true reality: where ideas in our minds can help us understand the form of 'The Good'.

(Cottingham, 1996, p. 67-69 512-513) In Plato's theory, what we perceive through our senses is not a reality i.e. what the prisoners see as the reality on the wall are just shadows, but on the contrary when one gains knowledge then he/she is able to understand the true reality. (Cottingham, 1996, p. 67-69 512-513)Unlike Plato in the Allegory of the cave, the Pragmatists connote that action and knowledge are two different spheres and also there is a supreme truth exceeding the sort of inquisition (ways by which the organisms can get a hold of their surrounding) that organisms use to get by in life.

(Shusterman, 1997, p.11, 23, 90-95)This theory provides an environmental account of knowledge. 'Real' and 'true' are used in the inquiry process and they cannot be comprehended outside of that context. The theory acknowledges an outside world that needs to be tackled or dealt with. John Dewey says 'something is "made true" when it is verified.' According to Pragmatists; 'truth is not ready-made, but jointly we and reality "make" truth.' Truth is characterized by being mutable and relative to the abstract system.

(Shusterman, 1997, p.11, 23, 90-95)In the Allegory of the cave approach, they are no visible importance of teaching since the students observe and learn from what they see. A teacher or a mentor is not assigned any role since in Plato's view of man is a universal being that does not learn but discover. All human beings have the ability to move to be ignorant to being known as Plato asserts.