Allegory of the cave

Plato's allegory of the cave is a philosophical thought experiment presented in Book VII of his dialogue The Republic, in which prisoners chained inside a cave since childhood see only shadows cast on a wall by objects passing before a fire behind them, and mistake those shadows for reality. When one prisoner is freed and brought into the sunlight outside, he gradually comes to understand the true nature of the objects and the sun itself, representing the philosopher's ascent from ignorance toward knowledge of the Forms. The allegory has become one of the most influential images in the philosophy of education, used to argue that genuine teaching is not the implanting of knowledge into an empty mind but the turning of a soul already capable of sight toward the truth. It continues to be read and taught as a foundational text for thinking about the purpose and difficulty of real learning. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/