Plato’s famous allegory of the cave comes from book VII of The Republic. In it, some prisoners are shackled, unable to turn around. There runs a walkway behind them that they cannot see, but shadows are cast from the things that walk or are carried across the walkway on to the walls in front of the prisoners. All they see is the shadows of these things, and hear only the distorted echoes. They can only guess at the actual shape of the things being carried along the walkway. The prisoners have always been chained like this, and so imagine that what they see is reality.
One of the prisoners gets free and for the first time, sees the world as it really is. After a period of disorientation he comes to understand the world in 3D, understands how the light creates shadows. This prisoner then returns to the cave to tell the others, to try to set them free, but to them he seems delusional or out-of-touch.
Read the text at: https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf
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