A paraphrase of the allegory of the cave in The Republic 

(NB: I have taken huge liberties with the text in these dialogues. They are very different from the actual texts themselves, but I have tried to outline some of the key arguments in the order in which they appear in the text and to maintain the sense of dialogue. My aim was to give you an introduction to the ideas discussed and to use those ideas as a catalyst for your own thoughts.)

Socrates: So Glaucon, let’s discuss the nature of education and what it means to have it or not have. This is an allegory of how I imagine things to be: imagine people imprisoned in a cave. They’re chained by the neck so that they can only face one wall. Behind them, on a raised platform there is a fire, and in front of the fire there’s a walkway. And people on the walkway use the fire to create a kind of shadow-puppet show on the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners can’t see the fire or the people or their puppets—all they’ve known their entire lives are the shadows that have been cast on the wall. They have learnt to name the shadows - so the shadow of a chair they call a chair, and so on.

Glaucon: It’s certainly a weird image, Socrates.

Socrates: And now imagine if these slaves were suddenly released from their chains. Imagine one of them was able to turn around for the first time. Wouldn’t the light hurt his eyes? Imagine he suddenly sees the puppet of a chair which caused the shadow of the chair - would he know which was the real thing and which wasn’t? And imagine if someone took him by the arm and forced him up the path out of the cave. Would he not complain and resist? And as he got closer to the sunlight, would it not hurt his eyes? Certainly, to begin with, he wouldn’t be able to look up at all because the light would be very painful for him. But then, eventually, he would realise that the true source of light is the sun, not the fire, and not the shadows. And that the sun ultimately causes everything he sees.

Glaucon: Yes, I suppose this is the conclusion he would slowly come to.

Socrates: Now let’s think about how he would relate to his former home. Back in the cave, the prisoners would have thought that a person who could name all the shadows that appeared on the wall knew loads. But this man would realise that they weren’t educated at all. Do you think he’d want to return to his old friends? Or would he prefer, like Homer has Achilles say, that it’s better to be a slave living above the ground than to live as they do below ground.

Glaucon: Yes, I think he’d rather endure the suffering of living under the sun than to live like his friends in the darkness.

Socrates: And the odd thing would be that if someone did return to the cave from the outside, then it would take their eyes time to get used to the darkness, and so they would appear blind to their old friends.

Glaucon: Of course

Socrates: And so, he wouldn’t be able to persuade any of them to accompany him out of the cave - why would they want damaged eyes? And if he tried to drag any of them up the slope, then surely they’d fight back, and possibly even kill him to defend themselves?

Glaucon: Definitely.

Socrates: And so, let’s see how this allegory compares with this world of ours. If you think that the prisoner’s ascent out of the cave represents the ascent of the soul from the world of mere sight to the world of intelligence, you’d be close to my own beliefs. Anyway, it seems clear to me that the idea of the good is like the sun in the allegory - it is the last thing that the man comes across in his education and it is very difficult for him to see. And once he recognises it, it would be obvious to him that this was the source of all knowledge - just like the good is the source of all truth and beauty. And anyone who came into contact with this wonderful idea, would naturally be a bit awkward when they come into contact with ‘uneducated’ people.

Glaucon: I can agree with all that

Socrates: And so education isn’t what some people would have us believe. The soul isn’t lacking knowledge until some wise ‘teacher’ places it there. In fact it’s quite the opposite. Everyone has the power to learn, but the person must make the decision to turn their whole bodies away from the darkness and towards the light,  away from the place of becoming to that of being, until they can tolerate reality and that divine splendour that we call the good. Is this not so?

Glaucon: It is.