The Allegory of the Cave (sometimes called Plato’s Cave) is an allegory written by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic to compare “the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature”.
In the allegory, the character of Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world.