Here is a view of the human condition.
People sit in a dark cave, watching the shadows that fall on the walls, and believe they are seeing reality.
If you take one of these people and lead him outside in broad daylight, he will be temporarily blinded by the light and see nothing. But then he will look around, see the real world, and even see the source of the light: the sun.
But when this man returns to the cave and tries to explain the truth to the inhabitants, they will not only laugh at him, they will kill him.
This is Plato's cave, one of the most dramatic and remarkable metaphors of all time. It is not so difficult to decipher it.
The inhabitants of the cave are the uneducated masses, the shadows are concrete material, temporal objects and not the eternal, universal values.
The one who steps out of the cave is the philosopher, the sun is good, the source of all truth, and the death at the end is an allusion to the execution of Socrates, whom Plato describes as the narrator of the allegory, thus foreshadowing his death.
The moral lesson is that the reward of philosophy is not fame, honor, and fortune.
Do not be comforted by the thought that the cavemen of today are only those who sit absorbed in front of the television.
It is not easy to escape from Plato's cave. Not only artists, but also natural scientists, in Plato's opinion, do not concern themselves with the really great things. This brings us to the following question: if Plato's truth lies outside the material world, does it exist?
If you live in a cave, think again before you come out. You will never be able to go back.
