The allegory of the cave

Summary of the allegory of the cave: here is a brief summary of Plato's famous myth illuminating the questions of ignorance and knowledge.

The allegory of the cave by Plato is a text from Book VII of The Republic . It is a dialogue between Socrates and his student Glaucon.

The themes covered are culture, ignorance , illusions and knowledge.

The story is allegorical: it is not intended to be plausible, it only serves to illustrate philosophical reasoning in a pictorial manner.

Here is a summary of Plato's allegory of the cave.

Allegory of the cave: summary.

Men have lived in a cave since their childhood: they have known nothing else. They are chained by the legs and neck so that they cannot turn their heads. and they don't see than the wall in front of them, which constitutes the bottom of the cavern.

The light comes from a fire burning high behind them. Between the fire and them, there is a low wall behind which objects are moving, manipulated by people who act like puppet showmen.

Thus, the prisoners can only see the shadows of these puppets projected on the wall in front of them, as well as their own shadows. They can't look at each other, but they can talk to each other. They also perceive the echo of the words of the puppet masters which reverberate on the wall, giving the impression that it is the shadows that speak.

One day, a prisoner is freed and forced to take the path that leads out of the cave, towards the light. He gets up, turns around, is first dazzled and then sees the artifacts and puppets directly. When asked about what he really sees, he is embarrassed. He tends to deny the obvious and the fact that he has been wrong for so long.

He is then invited to look towards the light coming from the entrance to the cave, but destabilized, he tends to want to return with the other prisoners. He is forced out of the cave, he then experiences a certain suffering.

He spends the night outside the cave; he gets used to the light of the stars and the moon. The sun returns and he manages to get used to its light. He ends up accept reality as it is, by understanding that the sun is the only source of light and truth .

The former prisoner thinks back to his companions and feels sorry for them. He wouldn't want to go back to the bottom of the cave for anything in the world.

But Plato says that if he returned there, he would certainly be confronted with the laughter and denials of his former colleagues, and even with the fact that some wanted to put him to death, convinced of his madness.