"Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye"

Plato's allegory of the cave is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work, Republic. Plato describes people who have spent their lives chained in a cave facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected onto the wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and they give names to these shadows. The shadows represent the fragment of reality the prisoners can perceive through their senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects. Socrates, the narrator, explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life.