One day, one of the prisoners escapes his chains. ‘What do you suppose he’d say,’ Plato asks us, ‘if he was told that what he used to see before was of no importance?’[iii] And as for the confusing 3D objects around him, ‘Wouldn’t he believe the things he saw before to be more true?’ Wouldn’t he, in short, go on the defensive? Wouldn’t he shield his eyes from the glare, and deny that everything he’d taken for truth were in fact no such thing? We are encouraged to think that our unchained man likely needs to be dragged to the surface. And when he gets there, ‘would he be able to see a single one of the things people call real?’ No, we are told, he would not. Not at first. The light is blinding and the fear is paralysing. He must acclimatise. Perhaps starting with shadows, then moving on to reflections, then the things themselves, then the lights of the night sky, until finally he’s ready to see the sun.