Socrates' Cave

Socrates gives the example of geometry, but we might be more comfortable with something like a logical or arithmetical system. You have your fundamental axioms, and from these follows the truth of the whole system. But for es, the basic principle will not be something we simply postulate; it will be something certainly and unshakably true. This is the role played by the form of the good, an object of completely certain knowledge in its own right. It grounds all our knowledge and makes that knowledge come out true. And that finally brings us to the cave. Unlike the rather abstract image of the line, the allegory of the cave is extremely concrete. We are