Book seven of Aristotle explains to us the “Allegory of the Cave”. Socrates portrays to the reader a group of men who are chained inside a cave, where all they can see are the shadows of fake animals and other worldly things. The point of this book is to promote the use of education to get far in life. Socrates says that the men locked in the cave were ignorant to the outside world, but when one man was released and saw the true images of the world, he understood that there was more to life than a mere cave with shadows of what he has truly seen. The point of this book is of course, the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit relates to the cave because the men who were inside the cave thought they were as happy as they could be, but they were not. The men were ignorant in believing this because the cave is all they knew. Socrates tries explaining to Glaucon that to live a happy life, it must be through being virtuous. The question I thought when reading this is how does one become virtuous? Socrates answers my question by telling Glaucon that being virtuous comes from being educated but perfecting these virtues comes from habit of doing it. “are formed in it in the course of time by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom.” (Aristotle, Book Seven)

Even though Socrates answered my question, I still believe that the overall object of this book is to depict the way a perfect city state should be run, and who should be in charge of such a tough task. Socrates tells us that the man in charge should be the man who is educated, in school and in life. The man for the job is the man who can study the important courses which are subjects like math. Numbers and geometry, Socrates states, are important to a man who must calculate a strategy in war and also be able to hold together a state. “Hence it would appear that the science of numbers must be one of the studies which we are in quest. For the military man finds a knowledge of it indispensable in drawing up his troops, and the philosopher must study it because he is bound to rise above the changing and cling to the real, on pain of never becoming a skillful reasoner.” (Aristotle, Book Seven) The point being, is that for a single man to be happy, he must live in a society where education is promoted and people want to get rid of their ignorance. Before this can happen, the ruling party of the city must be led by a philosopher but also a military leader. So the man who can lead the people to being truly happy must have all the qualities of a philosopher who seeks to reason and find virtue while he must also have the qualities of a military leader who can lead the people into battle to protect their happiness. This leader would be something of a philosopher king.