Next is a search for that knowledge which will raise men from darkness into the light. The others cry injusticebut Socrates assuages them, explaining that the guardians owe the greater part of their illumination the State and, in truth, will be required to spend only some of their time below, in service. In the subsequent deconstruction of his allegory, Socrates informs his uncomprehending auditors that the guardians of their State will be like the enlightened prisoner re-descending into the darkness, only this time, willingly, out of obligation, and in name of the greater good. There he finds his new eyes ill-suited for cave life and is cruelly mocked by the other prisoners. The third part of the allegory has the enlightened' prisoner, who has looked upon, contemplated, and adjusted to the true light of the sun, must return to the cave. The secrets of the cave are disclosed to him, and he is lead up into the sunlight, which blinds his unaccustomed eyes. Then one day a certain prisoner is released. Having always been in the cave, they believe the shadows are true likewise, the echoed voices they hear, they also believe to be true. Thanks to a small fire, the prisoners see the shadows of their captors projected on the wall.

We are to imagine a dim cave in which a group of prisoners, chained in such a way that they cannot move their heads, stare at a wall all day. It is his most elaborate figure yet and, assuredly, his most important. Another of Socrates' figures, the Allegory of the Cave, awaits the philosophic pilgrim who has come this far like the gaping mouth of the cave itself.

In Book VII Socrates continues work toward a more complete representation of the good.

Plato the republic book 7