Plato's Allegory of the Cave

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?
-The allegory of the cave represents how individuals reject reality and don't understand the truth behind life. 
2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?
-Prisoners were the ignorant individuals, cave was a world of imagination, sun was the reality of life, darkness was the lacking of truth, and the freed prisoner was philosophers. 
3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?
-After a while an individual will get the opportunity to embrace the truth. One must take the knowledge and do wisely with it. 
4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?
-Shackles show the prisoners being held against their will to live a life that is planned for them. The cave is merely where they plan to revise it to any state they want it to be. They are trapped from reality and unable to realize what lies past the light. 
5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?
-The government shackles our minds by controlling everything we do and removing anything that may lead to someone discovering something. 
6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?
-The freed prisoner was exposed to self thinking and realization, while the cave prisoners were stuck thinking their "normal" was normal.
7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?
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8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?
-Cave prisoners get freed by being exposed to freedom. Other people let them see the light and show them a new source of knowledge. 
9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?
-Yes, because not everything is what is seems. People could assume that just by looking at someone they were a tidy person, but when they look inside the person's backpack it seems as if a tornado had already been there.  
10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?
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