Plato's The Allegory of the Cave

Plato, through the conversation between Socrates and Glaucon narrates a story of a group of prisoners chained to face the wall in a dark cave. There is a fire behind them which casts shadows of puppeteers showing their puppets. The prisoners are unable to move and have been here since childhood. All they see is the shadows on the fall, which they believe to be the truth. That is what they perceive to be reality. Now if one of the prisoners is released, and exposed to look at the fire, it would be a painful sight for him. The glare would be too strong. Though he would be told that this is the truthful reality, he would be unable to comprehend this, and want to return to his previous state of painless ignorance. Then the prisoner leaves the cave and is out in direct sunlight. The glare continues to bother him. After his eyes are accustomed to the light, he begins to see things in their own being. Slowly he begins to process these images, and understands them as the reality. At this point then, Socrates and Glaucon agree that the prisoner has reached the point where he will not want to return to his previous state of existence. When the prisoner returns to the cave, he is ridiculed by the other prisoners for leaving the cave. Because they are ignorant about what they are missing, it is this prisoner to take on the role of educating them and showing them the light.

This story is basically compared to life. The cave is the world itself, and the fire the sun.

Plato also talks about the stages in the search for truth – ignorance, belief, thought, understanding and acceptance. When one is ignorant, accept that as the truth and rarely wants to move out of that comfort zone. But once you begin to understand and accept the truth, you realise the fallacies of your earlier beliefs.

This entire theory comes from a Western view of thought – where it is believed, there is only black and white and only one single truth. It does not give room for multiple truths or beliefs.

The Allegory of the Cave tackles reality and one’s perception of reality. Everyone is exposed to more or less the same reality (all the prisoners could see the same shadows on the wall) but yet how each understands the situation will be different. The perception of any reality can have infinite possibilities.