(Summary) The Allegory of the Cave

In the excerpt The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, Socrates and his student Glaucon are having a conversation about how much our nature is enlightened or unenlightened of reality. Throughout the excerpt Socrates uses the fable of the prisoners who grew up in a cave, and a chance of the prisoners getting out the cave and being exposed in another world that we call reality. With the prisoners being caved in since their childhood, the reality as we see it, is way different from the reality the prisoner was born in, the Cave. There is more to the world of reality than we can see, touch, hear and taste.

Socrates states an inception, behold human beings living in a cave and they have been from their child hood, having their legs, and necks chained to one another so they cannot move, and can only see what's before them; reflection of themselves and other objects carried by people, preserved in fire bouncing from the cave. 'Suppose the reflection of fire came about the cave, suppose the prisoners hear sounds, words, from outside of the cave. Being the prisoners can only see what is reflected upon the cave, the fire now has noise of some sort being brought in from the outside world yet, some objects are silent. The truth of reality would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

Socrates then explains to Glaucon, what if the prisoners are released of their error. Those prisoners were so eager to move, to walk and turn, and look towards the light. The prisoner who does so, will suffer from illusion, and won't be able to reimburse the reality of which he was once in. But since he has been let out into the real existence of the world, he has a clearer vision of what reality really is. He will become enlightened by what he has seen and start to believe the cave was the dark of life. Just as one becomes introduced to a new enivornment, he will be required to grow accustomed to what he has seen. It is ethical that he does, a habit to adapt to what he's been introduced to. He will be able to see reflections/shadows in other objects, water, moon, the stars, the sun. When the prisoner remembers his old habitation, how will he adjust and be comfortable with his new habitation. How will he intrude the other prisoners? Does he tell them, or pity them because the cave has been all they have seen?

This entire allegory, Plato has based human beings being trapped inside of this unenlightened reality of the world while there is more than what we are living in, more than what we can see eye to eye. Socrates tells Glaucon to not misunderstand him, to interpret the journey to be the soul of the intellectual world, to have a belief of what he desires. But Socrates goes on to say, in his opinion in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is only seen with effort.