These prisoners are chained so that their legs and necks are fixed, forcing them to gaze at the wall in front of them and not to look around at the cave, each other, or themselves (514a–b). Plato begins by having Socrates ask Glaucon to imagine a cave where people have been imprisoned from childhood, but not from birth. Shadows of artificial objects, allegory (image, illusion, analogy of the sun and of the divided line).Artificial objects (physical/visible creatures and objects).

Reflections of natural things (mathematical objects).Socrates remarks that this allegory can be paired with previous writings, namely the analogy of the sun and the analogy of the divided line. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not the direct source of the images seen. Three higher levels exist: the natural sciences mathematics, geometry, and deductive logic and the theory of forms. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. The shadows are the prisoners' reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. In the allegory 'The Cave', Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The allegory is presented after the analogy of the sun (508b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–511e). It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, is an allegory presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a) to compare 'the effect of education ( παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature'.

Plato by Plato