Allegory of the Cave was written by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work, The Republic. The allegory is illustrated through dialogue between Socrates, Plato’s mentor, and Glaucon, Plato’s brother.

The word allegory comes from the Latin word, allegoria, which is the latinisation of the Greek word ἀλληγορία. The meaning of ἀλληγορία is “veiled language”, “figurative”, or quite literally “speaking about something else”.

The dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon illustrates a scenario where prisoners in a cave are chained to a wall. Their entire lives, they are forced to look at shadows projected onto a wall – these shadows are created by people who are invisible to the prisoners. The “shadow makers” walk behind the prisoners holding up objects or signs in front of a fire, and they also make sounds when holding up these objects. The prisoners believe that these sounds are coming from the shadows themselves.

Once the prisoner has freed himself, he begins looking around the cave. To his shock, he sees the people holding up the objects in front of the fire and the other prisoners chained down, staring at the shadows on the wall. If he were told that what he is seeing now is what is real, he would not believe it, and go back to where he was chained down and continue staring at the shadows on the wall.

Then suppose this prisoner is dragged out of the cave by force out into the daylight. The prisoner would be very angry and his pain has only worsened since he is now being completely blinded by the sun. But slowly, his eyes would adjust. He would be able to look at the stars and moon at night, and finally, he will be able to look straight at the sun.

Socrates then continues with the thought experiment. Now that the prisoner has seen the outside world, he deems it superior to the cave where the other prisoners are still being held. He wants to share with the other prisoners what he has experienced so that they can also free themselves and leave the cave. Descending the cave, however, he is blinded by the darkness of the cave as his eyes were adjusted to the sunlight. Seeing this, the other prisoners would think that leaving the cave would be harmful. Furthermore, the prisoners would kill anyone who tried to drag them out of the cave, if they were capable of doing so.

So, who are the people holding the objects in front of the fire? Why are they holding these objects in front of the fire and creating these shadows on the wall? These people could be interpreted as the education system, media, parents, peers, and culture. We inherit a lot, if not most of, our beliefs from these sources. But are these beliefs and worldviews true? Where did these beliefs even come from? Why do these beliefs exist? These are some of the questions that we ask ourselves, and there are many ways of interpreting this allegory.

Allegory of the cave was written by Plato as a way of honouring his mentor, Socrates. We know that Socrates died in 399 BCE at the age of 70 after drinking hemlock. This happened following the Trial of Socrates where the philosopher was deemed guilty of two charges: impiety and corrupting the youth.

Prior to the trial, Socrates was known as a “moral gadfly” of Athenian society. In 423 BC, a playwright called The Clouds was produced by Aristophanes, portraying Socrates as a sophist who taught a young man, Pheidippides, how to create arguments that justified beating his father. This playwright was an indication of the negative attitude that Athenians had towards Socrates at the time.

Despite being provided with the opportunity to escape Athens by his friend, Crito, Socrates decided to stay to remain faithful to his principles, as he believed that escaping would go against the laws of the state and violate his pursuit of justice.

In the above painting, we can see Socrates reaching out for the cup of poison. Plato is seen in the left corner of the painting, slouched over in a chair. At the time of Socrates death, Plato was only around 20 years old. However, in this painting, Plato is depicted as an old man. The interpretation of this is that Plato is contemplating and imagining the death of Socrates as he was writing The Republic, which likely took place when he was in his 50s.

That’s it for this article, and thanks for reading.