Prisoners are in a cave, only able to look ahead of them. Behind them is a fire and a track where people walk along, carrying objects that cast a fire on the wall in front of the prisoners. One of the prisoners is set free and turns around to see that what he thought was real was mere images (this is a painful process due to light of fire and first time moving). The prisoner then ascends up a steep and rough path where he reaches the outside world. He then looks up at the sun but is painfully dazzled by the sun. After his eyes have adjusted, he looks around at nature, realising the objects he thought were reality are actual just objects in themselves. The prisoner then feels sorry for his fellow trapped prisoners so he descends back into the cave but having adjusted to the light, he struggles to see clearly in the cave. The fellow prisoners say the light has spoilt his vision of the 'truth' and he now cannot see clearly, threatening to kill him if he frees them
Prisoners => Normal unphilosophical people who are stuck in a state of eikasia, accepting doxa as the truth, rather than seeking episteme by challenging what they deem to be true
Shadows => Doxa that is far removed from the truth of the Forms and like shadows cannot hurt us, this doxa is a source of safety for us; comfort in what we believe we know. They flicker and are therefore in constant flux, representative of the changing objects in our world
The Cave - Representative of Horaton, the realm of illusion that is imperfect, physical and changing. In this world, the only knowledge we can gain is doxa via our flawed empirical senses
The Outside World - Representative of Noeton, the realm of the forms that is perfect, immaterial, eternal and unchanging. In this world, the knowledge is episteme
The Prisoner's Journey - The journey of education that philosophers face as they seek to turn away from Horaton, leaving a state of Eikasia and turn towards Noeton and strive for a state of Noésis. The struggle faced is symbolic of the mental toil that occurs when rejecting what you have been taught and assumed was true (Doxa)
The Sun - The Form of the Good, perfect, eternal, immaterial and unchanging. The Form of the Good is the source of all forms and knowledge, allowing us to experience the other forms. All other forms are illuminated by the Form of the Good and are aspects of the Good