Translation: Nikolaos Benias Edited by: Ioannis Leontaridis What does reality mean, what knowledge, what is the meaning of life? Big questions that we probably answer metaphorically, explaining, for example, existence as a journey on a road or an ocean, a climb, a war, a book, a thread, a game, a window of opportunity or a fleeting glimpse. 2,400 years ago, a great thinker in history said, in life we seem to be chained to a cave, forced to watch the shadows flickering on its wall. Very happy version, right? However, this version was proposed by Plato, in the Allegory of the Cave, which we find in the 7th book of "The Republic", in which the Greek philosopher envisions the ideal society, examining concepts such as: justice, truth and beauty. In the allegory, a group of prisoners are confined from birth to a cave with no knowledge of the outside world. They are chained, facing the wall, unable to turn their heads, as a fire behind them emits a faint light. Occasionally, people pass in front of the fire, carrying animal figures and other objects that cast shadows on the wall. The prisoners name and classify these apparitions, believing they are perceiving real entities. Suddenly, a prisoner is released and brought outside for the first time. The light hits his eyes and he becomes disoriented in the new environment. When he is told that what he sees around him is real, while the shadows were just reflections, he is unable to believe it. His shadows look more familiar. However, gradually, his eyes adapt until he sees the reflections in the water and of objects, directly and finally of the sun, whose light is the ultimate source of all that he has seen. The prisoner returns to the cave to share his discovery, but he is now unaccustomed to the darkness, and has difficulty seeing the shadows on the wall. The other prisoners believe that the journey has made him dumb and blind and violently resist any attempt to free them. Plato, in this text, introduces an analogy of what it is like to be a philosopher who tries to educate the public. Most people are not only comfortable in their ignorance, but they are hostile to those who make it apparent. Indeed, Socrates was sentenced to death by the Athenian government for disrupting the social order, and his student Plato devotes a large part of the "Republic" to discrediting Athenian democracy, while proposing that philosophers rule. In the allegory of the cave, Plato may judge that the masses are too ignorant and stubborn to govern themselves. However, this allegory has captured our imagination for 2,400 years because it can be interpreted in many ways. Importantly, the allegory is linked to the theory of Ideas or Forms, developed in other dialogues of Plato, which holds that, like shadows on a wall, objects in the natural world are false reflections of true ideas, such as completeness or beauty. Thus, the allegory of the cave raises fundamental questions, such as the origin of knowledge, the problem of representation, and the nature of reality itself. For theologians, true Ideas exist in the mind of a creator. Philosophers of language consider ideas to be linguistic concepts, where the problem of describing concrete objects through abstract concepts becomes apparent. Others wonder if we can really know if what is outside the cave is nothing more than shadows and such. When it comes to our lives, are we sure of what we think we know? Maybe one day, a ray of light will blow a hole in your most basic assumptions. Will you break the bonds, staggering towards the light, even if it costs you your friends and family, or will you remain in your comfortable and familiar delusions? Truth or habit? The light or the shadow? Tough choices, but you're not alone, if that's any consolation. There are many of us down here.