Plato's simile of the sun, image of the divided line, and allegory of the cave are intended to clarify exactly how the things we experience in the sensible, ordinary world (e.g., chairs, drawn triangles) are less real than the ideal models (Forms) on

Source: philosophy.tamu.edu

 

 ...Just as drawings, reflections, or copies of sensible objects are not as real as the sensible things on which they depend, so sensible things are not as real as the concepts in terms of which they are identifiable. Concepts that rely on sensual imagination for their intelligibility--for example, mathematical concepts such as triangularity--are more real than, say, triangular blocks of wood or drawings of triangles. But even though concepts that are based on sense experience are not limited to any particular expression and are unchanging, they are not as real as the Forms, which do not rely for their existence or intelligibility on anything sensual and changing...