Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that looks to define reality. It seeks to determine what is real from what may seem real, to separate reality from appearance.
To give an example, a person may appear to be in picture perfect health but actually is suffering from terminal brain cancer. Appearances might not always show the true nature of an object. There are differing views that examine the concept of reality. One view is monism. Monism is the theory that the basis of reality is from a single basic substance. Monism can further be divided into two outlooks. First we have materialism, which holds the belief that reality can only be defined in the form of matter or material substance. Secondly, we have idealism, which holds the belief
He describes a cave where prisoners are chained to a wall and cannot turn their heads, but only face straight toward a wall. This cave is all they know, they have never experienced any other reality. Behind them is a large fire, and in front of that fire people pass with objects and animals, reflecting images onto the wall that the prisoners can see. Plato then states “And so in every way they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were the whole truth.” This is all they have ever been exposed to, so for them, these shadows are reality. This shows the first step in Plato’s degrees of reality. The images are illusion. The prisoners are now only experiencing the least true reality. Plato goes on to ask what would happen if one of these prisoners were released from their shackles and made to turn and look at the fire and the people and objects. Of course the prisoner would be confused and even when confronted by this new reality still feel more comfortable with the reality he had known all his life. The prisoner is now moving on to Plato’s second step in the degrees of reality. The belief in physical objects. Realizing that the images were only copies of these objects. Then we follow the prisoner as he is forced on a difficult path up out of the cave and into the sunlight. The sunlight blinds him at first and he isn’t able to see any of the things he is now told are real. He’s moved from the visible world into the intelligible world. In time he can look at the sky, the moon, and stars. Again one step at a time he is perceiving the higher degrees of true reality. Then once he has accustomed himself to looking at all these new objects he can finally look into the sun in the light of day. Plato says “Later on he would come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces the changing seasons and years and controls everything in the visible world, and