The Allegory of the Cave was an allegory used by Plato within a fictional dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon in The Republic. Socrates describes a group of people who have been chained to the wall of cave their entire lives, with nothing but a blank wall to stare at. Shadows are projected onto the wall by passing things in front of the fire behind them. These shadows are the closest that the prisoners get to viewing reality.
Socrates goes on to explain that a philosopher is one who has been freed from the cave and can recognise that the wall shadows are not reality whatsoever. The Allegory fits within Plato’s Theory of Forms, in which “Forms” (or “Ideas”) possess the highest kind of reality as opposed to the material world of change that we know through sensation. Real knowledge is knowledge of these forms and this is the knowledge the philosopher has.
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