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The introduction offers a preliminary discussion of the relationship between freedom, power and knowledge, its philosophical relevance and its conceptual and historical implications. Starting from a general definition of freedom, I concentrate on freedom’s cognitive dimension. My main focus is the extent to which a free life requires a clear understanding of reality—i.e. the extent to which knowledge is empowering or liberating; and, conversely, the extent to which ignorance is debilitating or enslaving. I argue that this issue was first raised in Plato’s dialogues, where human ignorance is portrayed as a form of enslavement, and went on to become an important philosophical theme. After introducing Plato’s position, I highlight its unique influence on the work of two modern authors, Hegel and Nietzsche, who explicitly linked the notions of ignorance and truth to those of bondage and freedom—or slavery and mastery. I claim that these two philosophical projects represent, in many ways, the most extreme responses to Plato’s founding idea. While the dialogues stressed the need to re-educate, and thereby liberate human consciousness, Hegel and Nietzsche went further and sought to fulfil this ambitious task, but their solutions point in very different directions: whereas Hegel believes in the possibility of a true, and hence truly free mode of cognition, Nietzsche calls into question the very notion of truth, as well as the freedom it is supposed to offer.