Plato's Allegory of the Cave
compared to the human condition
The Allegory
Because of how we live, true reality is not obvious to most of us. However, we
mistake what we see and hear for reality and truth. This is the basic premise
for Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in which prisoners sit in a cave, chained
down, watching images cast on the wall in front of them. They accept these
views as reality and they are unable to grasp their overall situation: the cave
and images are a ruse, a mere shadow show orchestrated for them by unseen men.
At some point, a prisoner is set free and is forced to see the situation inside
the cave.
