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Plato educational views
Plato educational views
Education according to plato
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From its very outset The Laws is immediately different from the other Platonic dialogues. Although Socrates’ role had become gradually less important in the perceived chronology of the dialogues, The Laws is the only Platonic dialogue in which he does not appear . The un-named Athenian stranger, who is widely believed to represent Plato himself , takes his place. The Athenian stranger is joined by Megillus of Sparta and Cleinias of Crete who spend a long day’s walk discussing laws. This is the setting, and as usual Plato’s choice of characters is symbolic; Megillus represents Spartan political principles, while Cleinias represents the Athenian principles. The theoretical city that Plato has in mind will combine Spartan and Athenian elements with his own ideas; hence the cast. The Laws is a sprawling work based on extensive historical and empirical research and displays a remarkably vast knowledge of the political institutions, social structures and constitutions of many peoples and States. Although it is known as a dialogue, for the most part the Athenian stranger speaks without much engagement with his companions. For example, book V is an uninterrupted discourse while book VI is almost the same . This structure is different from the other dialogues (which have much more dialectical interchange) and perhaps says something about Plato’s mood while writing the work. After all Plato is now an old man believed to be at least seventy-four at the time of writing .
The title of the work indicates the first big difference to the Republic. Plato has turned from the rule of Philosophers (Philosopher Kings) to the rule of law. Indeed if I sketch a brief outline of the second best state, it is evident that it is designed in part to st...
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...l person because being moral, being reasonable, being happy, being sane, being free, and being fully human are all the same thing. One whose soul is not well-ordered, not ruled by reason, is psychically disintegrated, unhappy, immoral, a slave to passion and less than human. The psychically disintegrated soul is sick; it is afflicted with akrasia (the state of acting against ones better judgement, i.e. reason). Plato, in the Republic, holds that all individuals have rational faculties and thus the capacity to reason and for correct harmony in the soul ; the rational, allied with the spirited ruling over the appetitive. Plato at this point in his life believes that through education, and crucially early education (before the age of ten), if people can be thought the importance of moderation and harmony then the rational part of the soul will govern the appetitive .
Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve. Plato Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
Plato. “Republic VII.” Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy From Thales to Aristotle. Comp. and ed. S. Marc cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. 370-374
As in other areas of “The Republic,” Plato carefully outlines the delineations which form the basis for the types of rulers to be installed in the state. “Rulers” (legislative and udicial), “Auxiliaries” (executive), and “Craftsmen” (productive and fficacious) are the titles of the categories and are based, not on birth or wealth, but on natural capacities and aspirations. Plato was convinced that children born into any class should still be moved up or down based on their merits regardless of their connections or heritage. He believes the citizens of the State will support and benefit from such a system and presents the idea in the form of an allegorical myth.
A longstanding debate in human history is what to do with power and what is the best way to rule. Who should have power, how should one rule, and what its purpose should government serve have always been questions at the fore in civilization, and more than once have sparked controversy and conflict. The essential elements of rule have placed the human need for order and structure against the human desire for freedom, and compromising between the two has never been easy. It is a question that is still considered and argued to this day. However, the argument has not rested solely with military powers or politicians, but philosophers as well. Two prominent voices in this debate are Plato and Machiavelli, both of whom had very different ideas of government's role in the lives of its people. For Plato, the essential service of government is to allow its citizens to live in their proper places and to do the things that they are best at. In short, Plato's government reinforces the need for order while giving the illusion of freedom. On the other hand, Machiavelli proposes that government's primary concern is to remain intact, thereby preserving stability for the people who live under it. The feature that both philosophers share is that they attempt to compromise between stability and freedom, and in the process admit that neither can be totally had.
Plato’s Republic focuses on one particular question: is it better to be just or unjust? Thrasymachus introduces this question in book I by suggesting that justice is established as an advantage to the stronger, who may act unjustly, so that the weak will “act justly” by serving in their interests. Therefore, he claims that justice is “stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice” (Plato, Republic 344c). Plato begins to argue that injustice is never more profitable to a person than justice and Thrasymachus withdraws from the argument, granting Plato’s response. Glaucon, however, is not satisfied and proposes a challenge to Plato to prove that justice is intrinsically valuable and that living a just life is always superior. This paper will explain Glaucon’s challenge to Plato regarding the value of justice, followed by Plato’s response in which he argues that his theory of justice, explained by three parts of the soul, proves the intrinsic value of justice and that a just life is preeminent. Finally, it will be shown that Plato’s response succeeds in answering Glaucon’s challenge.
The Republic is considered to be one of Plato’s most storied legacies. Plato recorded many different philosophical ideals in his writings. Addressing a wide variety of topics from justice in book one, to knowledge, enlightenment, and the senses as he does in book seven. In his seventh book, when discussing the concept of knowledge, he virtually addresses the cliché “seeing is believing”, while attempting to validate the roots of our knowledge. By his use of philosophical themes, Plato is able to further his points on enlightenment, knowledge, and education.
In Plato’s The Republic, he unravels the definition of justice. Plato believed that a ruler could not be wholly just unless one was in a society that was also just. Plato did not believe in democracy, because it was democracy that killed Socrates, his beloved teacher who was a just man and a philosopher. He believed in Guardians, or philosophers/rulers that ruled the state. One must examine what it means for a state to be just and what it means for a person to be just to truly understand the meaning of justice. According to Socrates, “…if we first tried to observe justice in some larger thing that possessed it, this would make it easier to observe in a single individual. We agreed that this larger thing is a city…(Plato 96).” It is evident, therefore, that the state and the ruler described in The Republic by Plato are clearly parallel to one another.
The subject matter of the “Republic” is the nature of justice and its relation to human existence. Book I of the “republic” contains a critical examination of the nature and virtue of justice. Socrates engages in a dialectic with Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus, a method which leads to the asking and answering of questions which directs to a logical refutation and thus leading to a convincing argument of the true nature of justice. And that is the main function of Book I, to clear the ground of mistaken or inadequate accounts of justice in order to make room for the new theory. Socrates attempts to show that certain beliefs and attitudes of justice and its nature are inadequate or inconsistent, and present a way in which those views about justice are to be overcome.
Plato. The Republic. Trans. Sterling, Richard and Scott, William. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985.
The Republic is the most important dialogue within Plato's teaching of politics. It deals with the soul, which, as we know from the beginning, at the level where one must make choices and decide what one wants to become in this life, and it describes justice as the ultimate form of human, and the ideal one should strive for both in life and in state. Justice as understood by Plato is not merely a social virtue, having only to do with relationship between people, but virtue that makes it possible for one to build their own regime and reach happiness.
The Republic is an examination of the "Good Life"; the harmony reached by applying pure reason and justice. The ideas and arguments of Plato center on the social settings of an ideal republic - those that lead each person to the most perfect possible life for him. Socrates was Plato's early mentor in real life. As a tribute to his teacher, Plato uses Socrates in several of his works and dialogues. Socrates moderates the discussion throughout, as Plato's mouthpiece. Through Socrates' powerful and brilliant questions and explanations on a series of topics, the reader comes to understand what Plato's model society would look like. The basic plan of the Republic is to draw an analogy between the operation of society as a whole and the life of any individual human being. In this paper I will present Plato’s argument that the soul is divides into three parts. I will examine what these parts are, and I will also explain his arguments behind this conclusion. Finally, I will describe how Plato relates the three parts of the soul to a city the different social classes within that city.
Wisdom, courage, moderation and justice are four essential virtues the ideal state must be built upon, as explained by Socrates in Plato’s Republic. Throughout the eight books of Socratic dialogue the ideal state and ideas of justice are debated, on both individual and state levels. The guidelines for a perfect state and how it will come about are thoroughly described. Socrates covers every aspect of political life and how it should work stating that “until power and philosophy entirely coincide… cities will have no rest form evils” . In Plato’s Republic Socrates emphasizes the superiority of the philosopher and their abilities to rule as kings above others. He believes that they are best suited to rule as a result of their pure souls and lust for knowledge, the desire for truth over opinions and things that are tangible. The philosopher is best able to fulfill the four essential virtues of the state and thus must be the king. He evokes the idea of a cave, a parallel to the effects of education on the soul and a metaphor for human perceptions, to describe how humans will act and show distinctions between groups of people. This conception of the ideal state has been heavily criticized by his successors, but when applied according to how Plato perceived the state and human capacity, in theory the idea of the philosopher-king is extremely convincing. According to Socrates the soul is made up of three parts, and each person is governed primarily by a different one. Which aspect of the soul occupies a person affects their access to the four virtues deemed ultimate. The appetitive part of the soul is at the bottom of the divided line; it controls the unnecessary desires and is undesirable to be governed by. The spirited element of the s...
Plato’s thoughts about power and reason are much different than Aristotle. Plato looked at the meaning of justice and different types of governments. Plato looked into four different types of governments
The concept of written laws and their place in government is one of the key points of discussion in the Platonic dialog the Statesman. In this philosophical work, a dialog on the nature of the statesmanship is discussed in order to determine what it is that defines the true statesman from all of those who may lay claim to this title. This dialog employs different methods of dialectic as Plato begins to depart from the Socratic method of argumentation. In this dialog Socrates is replaced as the leader of the discussion by the stranger who engages the young Socrates in a discussion about the statesman. Among the different argumentative methods that are used by Plato in this dialog division and myth play a central role in the development of the arguments put forth by the stranger as he leads the young Socrates along the dialectic path toward the nature of the statesman. The statesman is compared to a shepherd or caretaker of the human “flock.” The conclusion that comes from division says that the statesman is one who: Issues commands (with a science) of his own intellect over the human race. This is the first conclusion that the dialog arrives at via the method of division. The dialog, however, does not end here as the stranger suggests that their definition is still wanting of clarity because there are still some (physicians, farmers, merchants, etc…) who would lay claim to the title of shepherds of humanity. For this reason a new approach to the argument must be undertaken: “then we must begin by a new starting-point and travel by a different road” (Statesman 268 D.)
In Plato’s Republic, the main argument is dedicated to answering Glaucon and Adeimantus, who question the reason for just behavior. They argue it is against one’s self-interest to be just, but Plato believes the behavior is in fact in one’s self-interest because justice is inherently good. Plato tries to prove this through his depiction of an ideal city, which he builds from the ground up, and ultimately concludes that justice requires the philosopher to perform the task of ruling. Since the overall argument is that justice pays, it follows that it would be in the philosopher’s self-interest to rule – however, Plato also states that whenever people with political power believe they benefit from ruling, a good government is impossible. Thus, those who rule regard the task of ruling as not in their self-interest, but something intrinsically evil. This is where Plato’s argument that justice is in one’s self-interest is disturbed. This paper will discuss the idea that justice is not in one’s self-interest, and thus does not pay.