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Reality is objective. However, man can only PERCIEVE that reality as best as he knows how. I think the point Plato was making in "The Cave" is that we need to understand that what we think reality is may not be what reality ACTUALLY is. This is where the human race has run into trouble since the dawn of human history. We each think our own individual perception of reality is the only true one. We do not allow for the fact that someone may have more of the facts than we do, or that different cultures will impose a different way of seeing and understanding upon their members. Imagine a genius who lived in Europe in the middle ages before the invention of the telescope. He might go out every night and stare at the stars, but for all his study and intelligence, his PERCEPTION would be that the universe revolves around the earth. Not only is that how it appears, it is also what the Catholic Church taught, and to go against the church was to have one's soul damned to eternal hell. That the church damned people to hell was a reality. Hell itself was a shared perception by Europeans of the middle ages (and by some people today). Since everyone led their lives by these shared perceptions, the perceptions became the reality which shaped their lives. Meanwhile, physical reality went right on existing, undeterred by anyone's delusions about it.
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