Sie sind auf Seite 1von 22

EDUCATIONAL THEORY

Platos Philosophy of Education:


the Meno Experiment and the
Republic Curriculum
BY ROBERT S . BRUMBAUGM
I
PLAT0 IS ONE OF THE MOST I MPORTANT INFLUENCES I N OUR CONTEMPORARY
DISCUSSIOSS OF PHILOSOPHY, INCLUDING PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION.
For example, English translations of the Republic continue to lead American
sales lists for philosophy, and this dialogue is still the text most widely used
to introduce our students to the field. The Socratic method remains one 04
the standard teaching techniques, and the Republics theory of ideas, with its
suggested curriculum for Utopia, still operates, in foreground or background,
as a major competing view to pragmatism, existentialism, and logical empiricism.
But there are unusual difficulties confronting anyone who tries to explain or
appraise the full scope of this educational philosophy. First, for Plato as for
Dewey Philosophy of education is identical with the whole of philosophy,
broadly conceived. The dialogue form is designed to show us, and draw us into,
an educational method of shared inquiry at work, A second difficulty is that
the Platonic dialogue has a concrete dramatic dimension which is just as
inseparable from its meaning as the abstract arguments that it presents.
If we look for neat statements of doctrine that can be isolated from context,
the result is either a caricatured distortion of meaning, or an annoying
ambiguity. This leads to the third major difficulty involved in a discussion of
Platos philosophy of education: the Platonic passages concerning this topic
have been approached by scholars wth such diverse techniques and pre-
conceptions, that although there is close scholarly agreement as to what their
texts say, there is no consensus at all which we can draw on as to what
they means1
ROBERT S . BRUMBAUGH is Professor of PhilosoPhy at Yale University.
1Only one textual question is directly relevant; that is the reading of the directions
for constructing the divided line, some editors preferring ANINA (which would make the
divisions equal) to ANISA (which makes them unequal). Indirectly relevant (see Appendix A
below) is the variant hekaton for hekaston in the nuptial number of Republic viii, a
notoriously vexed passage bearing on the theory of heredity. But any standard article or
history of philosophy will give an idea of the range oE interpretations of Platos texts which
have appeared in western Platonism.
207
208 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
I n my present discussion, I propose to examine the two Platonic passages
most often included in anthologies or quoted in textbooks as typifying his
educational philosophy, namely, the experiment with Menos slave in the dialogue
called the Meno, and the divided line in Republic vi which gives the rationale
of the curriculum for Utopia present in Books iii and vii.2
Both Plato and Aristotle tend to be underrated by modem students of
educational theory, but for different reasons, Aristotles didactic lectures tempt
one to overlook the broader philosophic justifications of such a discourse as
Politics viii, justifications which occur elsewhere in his writings.3 Platos
arresting metaphysical convictions tempt one, on the contrary, to ignore the
concrete discussions of education in favor of amusement at or dissent from
the abstractly stated metaphysical theories. But Platos whole life was spent
as an educator, and it would be fairer to say that his metaphysics grew out
of a concern with the goals and presuppositions of the educational process
than to argue that the educational theory is simply a rigid application of
abstract ideas arrived at from other areas of e~peri ence.~
The main novelty of my present paper will be its attempt at accurate
reconstruction of the higher education of the Republic. This has, I think, been
badly misunderstood both by its detractors and defenders. But it may well be
that Platos greatest contribution to educational theory is not this curriculum,
but his insistence that learning cannot be a spectator sport, an insistence that
marks the treatment of motivation which Plato contributed to the discussion
of the aims of education.
I n Athens when Plato was a child and a young man, a controversy which
seems strikingly contemporary in some ways was going on over progressive
education. For example, Aristophanes play, The Clouds, appeared in 423 B.C.,
when Plato was four years old. I n it Aristophanes stated the conservative case
against the new notions developed after the Persian War by the Sophists,
professional experts in the field of teaching.5 The character who personifies
ZMeno 821A-86C; Republ i c 509D-513E; Republ i c 521C-5422E. Readily accessible English
translations are B. J owett, Dialogues of Plato, trans. rcpr. from 3rd edn. with introduction by
R. Demos, 2 vols., New York, 1937 etc., I, 383-401; I, 569-773; I, 780-801. J owetts translation
of the Meno has becn reprinted separately, with an introduction by F. H. Anderson, (Library
of Liberal Arts), New York. Many teachers and readers prefer F. M. C,ornfords translation of
Lbe RePublic (Oxford, 1937; reissued, paper bound, Oxford Press 1942 6f ) to J owetts more
literary, less literal version. For the text, see Platon. Rdpublique, ed. E. Chambry (Bud6 edn) ,
Paris, 1934; Gorgias, Menon, ed. A. Croiset with collaboration of L. Bodin (Bud6 edn),
Paris, 1924; or J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, 5 vols. Oxford, 1900, vols. 111, I V. The traditional
diagrams devised in antiquity to illustrate the Meno figure and the line will be found in
MI. C. Greene, Scholia Platonica, Haverford, 1929. For more detailed discussion of the
Platonic figures, see R. S. ,Brumbaughs Platos Mathematical Imagination, Bloomington, 1954,
3This is the thesis of R. S. Brumbaugh and N. M. Lawrence, Aristotles Philosophy of
4See, for example, the biography of Plato in .4. E. l ayl or, Plato: the Man and Hi s Work,
5Aristophanes, The Clouds; English translation easily available i n The Cornpl et e Greek
19-32, 104-107, 264-273.
Education, Educational Theory, 1959.
6th edn., London, 1952.
Drama, ed. W. J. Oates and E. ONeill, 2 vols., New York, 1938.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 209
the undesirable upsetting of the old order is an expert named Socrates.6
This character is obviously a composite caricature, teaching a strange medley
of atheism (inspired by new science, which Aristophanes did not understand,
but mistrusted), disrespect for custom, shyster legal tactics, and amoral self-
interest. Aristophanes much prefers the old idea of a gentleman to this new
over-intellectual challenge to the feudal values he admires. I n the play, the
student who is a product of the new progressive school run by Socrates is
given such a heady sense of emancipation that he proceeds to beat his father,
upstage center.
Meanwhile, despite Aristophanes satire, there was a pressing practical
demand for training in political public speaking, law, and etiquette (right
accent and some general culture); and the Sophists, for a substantial fee, met
this demand.7 The tactical effectiveness of the training they gave is clear
from the bitter hostility to these teachers on the part of the general public
which could not afford their services.* Both from the reactionary aristocrats
and the proletarian democrats there was distrust and dislike of the educa-
tionists of the day.
Nineteen years later, the controversy over education figured in a tragedy.
A precariously restored democracy, unable to defend itself effectively after
losing a protracted war with Sparta, found the critical inquiries of Socrates a
clear and present danger. He was accused of disrespect for the state religion
and of being a corrupter of the young men of at hen^.^ An unquestioning
middle-class patriotism seems to have been the ideal of the government of
that day, with proper outward respect for state ceremonies and due sup-
pression of comments that might be construed as un-Athenian. Anytus, a
former tanner who had become a leading figure in the restored democracy,
represents this point of view, as Plato portrays him, in the Apology and
A4eno.1 From Athenian precedent, it seems likely that the intention of this
criminal charge was simply to frighten Socrates into leaving Athens.11 Socrates,
however, stayed and stood trial: he tried according to Platos report in the
Apology, to explain to the jury that they should not confuse his real efforts
6For an interesting life of Socrates, with attention to Aristophanes reasons for making
him the central figure i n his comedy, see A. E. Taylor, Socrutes, Oxford 1933, reprinted
(Anchor Books), New York, 1956.
7Most of the extant direct and indirect quotations will be found i n K. Freemans
translations of H. Diels, Fragrnente der Vorsokratiker ( K. Freeman, The Pre-Socratic
Philosophers and Ancilla to the Fre-Socrutics, Oxford, 1948). An estimate of their relation to
Ilato that seems judicious is given in R. 13. Levinson, Defense of Pluto, Cambridge, Mass. 1953.
See also E. R. Dodds, ed., Pluto: Gorgias, Oxford, 1959, 1-18, 30-34, 387-392.
%More Sophists!, shouts the unmannerly Porter i n Platos Protagoras, as he tries to
slam the door in the faces of Socrates and his companion. Yrotagoras book reputedly had been
banned i n Athens in 418 B.C.
Wee Platos Apology, A. E. Taylors Socrates, and the excellent notes i n J . Burnets
edition of the Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito (Oxford, 1924). For a summary of the historical
situation, s,ee, for example, J . ,B. Bury, History of Greece, (Modern Library), New York, 1937.
lOApology 24A ff.; Meno 90B-95A.
l l A similar charge had been brought, about half a century earlier, as a pretext which
succeeded i n forcing the philosopher Anaxagoras to leave Athens.
210 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
with the antics of the Socrates in Aristophanes play; that his insistence on
free inquiry was a public service; and that his accusers were shortsighted in
assuming that critical intelligence must always prove fatal to political stability.
As we know, Socrates was executed in 399 B.C. Plato, then twenty-three, put
aside plans he had had for a political career, and began to write dialogues,
one purpose of which was to defend Socrates against the charge of being a
bad educational influence on young men. I n the course of the defense, Plato
took pains to differentiate Socrates own position from the caricature Aristo-
phanes had created. For both Socrates and Plato disliked a number of the
Sophists tactics in education; in particular, a dogmatic anti-intellectualism
which prevented their revolt against established custom from developing a
constructive alternative program.
I1
However we group them chronologically, Platos early dialogues, as I
have suggested, form a coherent rhetorical unit in defense of Socrates against
the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Indeed, the short, dramatic
group of dialogues Lysis-Charmides-Laches show Socrates actual educational
effect, first on two young boys (Lysis and Menexenus, ages about ll), next
on a shy young man dominated by a dogmatic uncle (Charmides, about 16,
and his uncle Critias), and finally on two former commanding generals
cornered in a serious discussion of education in a gymnasium (Generals
Laches and Nicias ) . Socrates asks provocative questions, to which he does
not provide the answers. But by a dramatic device of self-reference, Plato
shows that each time the concrete situation is changed by Socrates conversa-
tion in a way that points toward an answer to the inconclusive abstract
discussion. I n the Lysis, for example, a shared discussion of friendship, though
inconclusive, ends by making all of the five participants friends. I n the
Charmides, an inconclusive discussion of temperance ends by convincing
Charmides that there is a difference between temperance and timid incon-
spicuousness, and leads him to challenge his overbearing relative, Critias. In
the Laches, a discussion of education in courage ends with the generals
agreeing that it would show lack of courage on their part to give up the
inquiry. The impact of Socrates analytic method, which looked like quibbling
to some of his contemporaries, is thus shown by Plato to be a desirable one;
particularly, we may say, desirable when the respondents are young men,
for the older participants tend to become exasperated at Socrates or at each
other.
A second group of early Platonic dialogues complement the three just
mentioned by counteracting any notion that Socrates was an irresponsible
citizen or a religious eccentric. This is done by recreating his trial and death,
preceded by a discussion of piety with the religious fundamentalist,
Euthyphro. These dialogues are the Euthyphro-Apology-Crito-Phaedo.l2
IzDramatirally, this tetralogy forms a tight unit; but the Phaedo seems, from style and
content, to have been written later, and to belong to the dialogues of the speculative middle
group. For a suggested more piecisc dating, cf R. S. Bluck, Plutos Phaedo (London, 1955;
repiinted (Liberal Arts) New York, 1959), Appendix One.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 211
A third defense remained: Plato still felt the need to show that Socrates
differed entirely in his doctrine, purpose, and theory of education from the
Sophists. A larger scale, more dramatically ambitious, series of dialogues can
be characterized as Socrates versus the experts - in this group the differ-
ences become clear as he criticizes the leading teachers of the day, and shows
the inadequacies of their position, on occasion turning their own techniques
against them. These dialogues include the Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias Minor;
perhaps the hilarious Euthydemus; and, if we read it separately, we might
also include Book i of the RepubZic.l3
The issue between Socrates and the Sophists has been variously inter-
preted. One tendency today is to stress certain analogies between the Sophists
criticisms of the established run of things and our own theories: their rejection
of absolutes, their instrumentalism, their stress on social adaptation and
curricular practicality, their development of teaching as a paid profession -
and by this stress to make them heroes in the history of education. The
evidence, unfortunately, is scant enough so that one can believe almost any-
thing about them. But if we concentrate on Platos criticism of their educational
theories, which would be irrelevant if it did not to some extent represent
their actual position, I believe we must conclude that the Sophists were bad
educators; this was, possibly, not a necessary consequence of their more
general philosophic notions, but rather may have been a result of a failure to
understand their own position adequately. One can still debate the question
of theoretical pragmatism versus Platonism, but we cannot well help agreeing
with Plato that historically the Sophistic claims amounted to obtaining money
under false pretenses. A dogmatic rejection of speculation, a playing-down of
science, an inept faith in linguistic skills as universal instruments, an un-
critical notion of valuation, and an authoritarian teaching technique combined
to vitiate their program.14
l3The point of the Euthydernus seems to lie to show the unsuitability of a sharp,
abstract, either-or logic of the type admired by Platos contemporaries, the Megarians, for
treating ethical questions; this suggests a later date. (The dialogue is described as hilarious
advisedly; an adaptation as a one-act play by R. Neville was very well received as part of
the College Weekend entertainment at Pierson College, Yale University, in a past spring.)
Republic i will be shown, below, to have a constiuctive dialectical organization not typical
of the other writings of the early group.
14These are Platos criticisms, which our other independent information seems to show
were justified. Gorgias, i n Platos dialogue named after him, is not speculatively or theo-
retically inclined; and the extant remains of his anti-philosophic speech On Being show
that this anti-speculative bias was deliberate and strong. Protagoras, in the dialogue of that
name, is a humanist who does not bother his pupils with mathematics or science; and the
only recorded excursion into this area by the historical Protagoras is an insistence that
mathematics deals with unrealistic, useless fictions, since a [physicall circle and line do
not touch each other [only at a point1 as geometers say they do. Prodicus, fascinated by
dialects and etymologies, may not havc been as inept a critic of poetry as Plato makes him
out in the Protagoras, but the extant speeches of Gorgias (e.g., Defense of Helen), would
show us, even without the statements of Plato and Aristotle, how the new rhetoric suhor-
dinated thought to diction and style. Thrasymachus i n Republic i, and Polus i n the
Gorgias, are less genteel than their teachers, and outspoken i n their rejection of custom
i n favor of nature (which was conceived in the case of human nature as an instinctive,
(Footnote continued)
212 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
I n the Meno, we have a recreated experiment in education which falls
between Platos early pictures of Socrates as teacher and the later group of
Socrates against the experts; for Meno is a product of the teaching of Gorgias,
one of the leading Sophists, and his response to Socrates should show us
whether and how well he has been taught.
One rather surprising clue to Menos education, to which too little at-
tention has been given in past interpretations, is his notion of what teaching,
learning, and knowing are. It seems that Meno believes that knowing is
remembering what a teacher has told us. I n no other way can we understand
why he agrees with Socrates, that the latter has taught nothing to the
Slave Boy, who nevertheless knows a new theorem after Socrates ques-
tioning.15
Meno has no power of generalization: he remembers Gorgias teaching
that there is a distinct human excellence proper to each social station and
age.l6 (This seems to reduce ethics to an outsized book of etiquette, so that
a good man learns what he should do by consulting the reference book.)
This follows a discussion of definition in which Meno prefers the pore-and-
particle mechanistic account of sensation to Socrates more logically adequate
definition of color. Perhaps this preference shows the same mindset that
sees virtue as the adaptive fit of the individual social particle to the com-
partments of society.
The idea Meno has of teaching is particularly interesting because it
seems so perverse in the face of Socrates experiment with the Slave, an
experiment which has been treated ever since as a classic in the history of
teaching methods. The Socratic method used with the Boy involves several
steps. I n the first place, the Boy must want to know, and must share the
inquiry; his first snap judgment has to be shown inadequate so that he sees
a challenge in the question before him and tries to remember the answer.
His attempts at remembering must be treated as speculative hypotheses,
subject to critical testing. Before the Boy could have knowledge in Socrates
sense, his final successful solution for the case at hand would have to be
generalized and the causes of its success discovered; but for the present
experiment, the induction from the diagram before him to a special case of
Euclid 1.45 is good enough. Without having been told, he has, by inquiry,
discovered a fact that he did not know before.
Socrates is quick to point out the application of this result to his own
discussion with Meno.17 If, as Meno complains, Socrates is like an electric eel,
insatiable drive for property ant1 power) as the basis for their theories of value: the
historical plausibility of this is clear if we compare thc fragments of Antiphon and the
Anonymous Sophist quoted by Iamblichus. Hippias, who did lecture on science, appears as
a pretentious polymath, an almanac of information uncritically ordered, in Platos portrait
or portraits (since there is still some doubt as to the authenticity of the Hippias Major
and Hif@ias Minor, but none about the Protagoras). We will find Gorgias attacked for his
authoritarian teaching methods i n the Meno.
l5Meno 85E.
IcIbid., 71C ff.
17Ibid.. 76C-E.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 213
and shocks his students into an awareness of their own confusions, the shock
is necessary to get them to put aside their satisfaction with preconceived
ideas, so that there is an honest concern with the problem, and an internally
motivated desire to find its solution. There is no way to teach a student who
does not want to learn. Or in ethical terms, there is no way to teach new
values to a student who remains uncritically satisfied with slogans and un-
enlightened self-interest. Here is one central Platonic objection to the Sophists:
their indifferences to motivation, and their uncritical acceptance of desire for
wealth and prestige as the external driving forces of their schools of success,
almost insured that their tactical exercises would not make their students
better human beings. Until Socrates had challenged him, the Slave Boy had
been satisfied with, and ready to tell the world, his conviction that the square
on double a line has double the area. Meno had been in the same position
with respect to his notions of the aims and methods of education.
After the experiment, Meno is more engaged and more willing to test
hypotheses. We know the result: since all men want the good, if virtue were
teachable, we should be able to find it being taught. But it does not seem
that the masters either of precept or example have been able to teach their
students, or even their own sons, to be good men. It does not disprove the
hypothesis that virtue is knowledge (hence by definition teachable) to be
unable to find it being taught; but it does leave one with a strong incredulity.
However, before this final hypothetical conclusion is reached Meno has
had to be persuaded that he should continue with the discussion.18 Again
what Plato is implicitly criticizing here is the falseness of any claim t o teach
that disregards the motivation of the learner. If knowledge is simply memory
of ascertained fact, as it would be on Gorgias view, it seems pointless to
inquire into something we dont know; if, on the other hand, knowledge is a
new insight arrived at from intellectual concern with a problem situation,
there remains some hope for a method of shared inquiry into novel problems.
Socrates is convinced that the learners mind is capable of discovering new
truths which he had not been told, and had not actually known, before.
On this point, a myth of recollection in the best Pythagorean-Orphic
style still leaves Meno sceptical, but Socrates crucial experiment with the
Slave finally does convince him.19 Ironically, the explanation of learning
as simply memory that Meno holds would commit him to taking as literal
historical fact the theory of reincarnation which Socrates presents as a plausible
myth with a true moral. To the admirer of the urbane scepticism of Gorgias,
such a latent commitment to literal interpretation of theological fables would
be particularly unwelcome.
I am trying to stress that the Meno can be read as an experimental
confrontation of two educational philosophies. On the one hand, we have the
Sophistic position presented to us as one in which information, memory, and
conditioning are the sole concern; the learner is not treated as having an
Wbid., 80A.
19Ibid., 81A-E; 82A ff.
214 EDUCATIONAL THIZORY
inner self; and any claim that skills externally applied will make him a good
human being patently fails in the test case at hand. But, borrowing the
method of hypothesis from geometry, it should follow that if virtue is
knowledge, and if knowledge is remembered precept or fact, a virtue could
easily be taught, like the alphabet or multiplication table. As we have seen,
Socrates argument, on the other hand, puts the hypothesis in serious doubt.
For if the knowledge that makes men good is the kind of information the
experts control, the pupils of the Sophists should learn to be good men; if
what is needed is rather the example of someone with right opinion (even
though he has not formulated the rules of his actions) the sons of good men
and the subjects of good statesmen should excel in virtue. And we must
agree that neither of these deduced consequences is found to be the case,
despite Anytus outrage at the implied criticism of Athens great leaders of
the past.20
Here the discussion ends; what conclusion did Plato intend? Why do we
feel the outcome of the argument disappointing, even though we cannot, like
Anytus, reject it by fiat? The reason is that throughout their discussion, virtue
has been taught to Meno by Socrates! Therefore, if we count the Socratic
method as a form of teaching, and count our desire to know more of our-
selves and of the good a kind of knowledge, virtue is knowledge and there
is at least one teacher of it, Socrates. However, if with Meno we construe
knowledge as factual information and teaching as presenting truths for the
student to remember, Socrates has not taught either Meno or the Slave Boy.
In spite of this, we must admit that the Boy, through being persuaded t o give
up his first guess and to think, has by recollection gained a new item of
mathematical, factual knowledge; it depends on our own definitions whether
or not we also say that being forced to challenge his memorized answers and
his attitudes had led to new ethical knowledge on the part of Meno.
Thus the great experiment in Socratic method extends to the Meno as a
whole, and the demonstration with the Boy is a play within a play.
I11
I n contrast to his role in the early dialogues, Platos Socrates, in the
Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, and Republic develops a great system of
speculative philosophy.
I n the Republic, the Platonic theory of forms which is central to this
system is applied to the discovery of criteria for good societies and good
character. Plato offers as his ideal of social excellence a state without class
friction, with rulers, protectors and producers as its three functional classes,
and with assignment of status by merit.
Later readers have found a number of objectionable
- beginning with readers no later than Platos student
features in this ideal
Aristotle. There has
20Ibid., 95A.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 215
been wide disagreement as to what this discussion of justice in society really
is: the theme of the dialogue as a whole is justice - in the state, the indi-
vidual, and the universe - and the model of a just society could therefore
legitimately overlook properties essential to realistic political theory in order
to emphasize the similarities of justice in these three contexts.21 I will
concentrate, however, on a thesis in the argument which holds however the
dialogue is read: that effective social life depends on adequate education.
To this end, the Republic provides three levels of public education, a
common elementary school (see Appendix A, below, for defense of this
interpretation), a secondary school with selective admission, and a state
university with admission still more selective.22 The first of these institutions
will teach mousikk - literature, music, and civics; the second will prepare
future auxiliaries for military and civil service posts by a curriculum of
mathematics, arithmetic, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and
harmonics, in that order. (This Platonic suggestion is the ancestor of the
Medieval quadrivium.) Finally, in higher education there will be five years
of dialectic followed by fifteen more years of practical experience for the
students chosen to be future legislators.
The rationale of this plan for the education of rulers is that they must be
disinterested and have clear knowledge of the true general welfare of the
state. The kind of knowledge adequate to the authority and responsibility
they are given cannot be simply that of our ordinary politicians: there are
three inferior sorts of knowing from which we must distinguish it. This
distinction is what Plato is illustrating by his diagram of the divided line,
where four degrees of clarity of knowledge are represented by a line divided
into four segment~.~3
The lowest level of Platos line represents a kind of knowledge which he
calls eikasia, often translated as conjecture. This is the kind of knowledge
we have when we know something because we have been told it, or have
read it in the paper. While hearsay may on occasion be quite true, the fact
that it is notoriously unreliable is so well known that our modern law of
evidence will not allow it in court.
The next level of the line is called pistis a word often rendered as be-
lief. As Plato uses his terms, we must think of this belief as differing from
hearsay because it is based on first-hand experience. This is the sort of
knowledge a craftsman has; he knows how to make something, and often
what to expect, though he need not know why his predictions are right.
Plato considered the politicians of his day men who were at best political
technicians - they knew the tricks that got popular support, they were often
right in their beliefs about the results of policy decisions; but they were
working by rule of thumb, inexactly and unscientifically.
2lCriticism and defense of the state of the Hepr bl i c are well summarized and discussed
22Republic vii. 522A ff.; cp. ibid., ii, iii.
23RepubZic vi. 509D ff.
i n Levinson, 09. cit.
216 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
The third level of the line is called diaiioia, a term often translated as
understanding (partly because of the influence on our English philosophical
vocabulary of the Kantian distinction between Vernunft and Verstand). To
understand something is to be able to explain a particular case or problem
by deductions from general laws or axioms. Such understanding by relating
the particular to a universal rule, tells one uhy as well as how things behave
as they do. Mathematical reasoning seemed to Plato the clearest example of
the kind of knowledge on this level of understanding. I n geometry, for
example, we understand theorems when we prove them deductively from the
more universal postulates and axioms of the system. Other passages show that
Plato also intends to include as knowledge of this sort such devices as the
multiplication table or the chemists periodic table of elements, from which
we can compute solutions. But both the reference to computation and the
mention of geometry suggest to a modern reader a limitation on this kind
of knowing, which Plato emphasized: there can be more than one set of
axioms and postulates that serve as starting-points for deductive explanation,
more than one table that can be put in the memory of a computing machine.
This is probably much more clearly the case in political theory, say, than in
geometry and algebra, to which Platos misgivings (as opposed to our own)
rested purely on principle.
Platos fourth level of his line, called episteme (science) and knowledge
by nous (reason), does not use hypotheses except as steps to mount on.
The advance of science does away wi th hypotheses, The point here is that
the scientist in this sense has examined and compared the possible gen-
eralizations that suggest themselves as rival explanatory laws, and has
determined which of them is the best, or, more usually, how all can be
synthesized into a more general theory that is complete and better. The true
scientist is both aware and critical of his assumptions, unlike the computing
machine, which cannot go beyond the facts in its memory or the rules of its
program.24
This Platonic account is clear, and so far not out of date. It comes as
something of a surprise to many readers to find that the form of the good
still remains, at the very top point of the line, It is this form that gives the
scientist his criterion for picking the best theory. This idea of the good
is a presupposition of our inquiry, which cannot be understood by a deduc-
tion from, say, a general theory of value - because we could not trust such a
theory unless we knew it to be a good one, and we would have had to
presuppose our knowledge of the good to make such a judgment. Plato, as
we will see, does his pedagogical best to explain this form to us in another
way, by clarifying our vision of it through a series of accounts moving up
through the four levels of his divided line.
24The illustrations of levels of knowledge are a pair used in other contexts to illustrate
the line; for fuller discussion, see N. P. Stallknecht and R. S. Brumllaugh, The Compass of
Philosophy, New York, 1954, Chap. iii; ibid., The Spirit of Western Philosophy, New York,
1950, pp. 86 ff.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 217
Because so much discussion of Platos line is solemn, technical, and dryly
remote from modern background or interest, a deliberately inelegant example
of a progression through the four levels of knowing is sometimes useful as a
provocative counterweight. I n N. P. Stallknecht and R. S. Brumbaugh, The
Compass of Philosophy, Chap. 111, the interested reader will find such an
illustrative anecdote that I have found effective in teaching, centering about
an ascent of the divided line in the course of an adventure in a summer
cottage with a cantankerous refrigerator. A clear projection of the form of
the good in the same anecdotal mode, however, still lies beyond my talent
for modern Platonic allegory.
We should be clear as to what Platos exact meaning is here. He is not
saying that any given theory in physics or social science can be finally shown
to be absolutely true; he is saying that if his ideal legislators had an ideal
science, this ought to have such certainty. What is absolutely certain is that
we can accept what is most reasonable as most true. Plato is true enough to
his own rule that the scientist must examine his assumptions to recognize
this, and to find it surprising. His final argument is that this correspondence
of our laws of thought and the world of fact holds because our minds are
themselves part of a common reality in which both thoughts and facts are
organized by a common principle of value. (I t is natural for us, for example,
to prefer simplicity in our theories, because nature too prefers simplicity, and
this natural preference is reflected in the operations of our minds. ) This Platonic
conception leads into philosophic issues and controversies that we will not
pursue here; but in studying Platos ideal curriculum, we must remember that
its aim is to clarify the students knowledge of fact, of logic, and ultimately
of value.
Certainly the objective nature of the good, if there is such a thing which
can be known, is what our ideal legislators need to know to do their work
well. But what is this form of the good, and what is the method of dialectic
that leads to it, using hypotheses only as steps to be transcended? Remem-
bering the Meno, we might well expect that: 1) all of us are confusedly yet
definitely aware of the nature of the good, since we all desire it; and 2) that
to make this awareness clear, we will need to be challenged to use our own
insight, since here, as in the ethical problem Meno faced, a textbook formula
would be either useless or misleading.
Plato does his best to explain the nature of the good in this section of
the Republic by discussing it from the standpoint of each of the ways of
knowing he distinguished in the figure of the divided line.25 He tells a story
(The Allegory of the Cave), about prisoners in a cave led from shadow to
25The correspondence suggesLed is:
LINE ILATONIC PASSAGES
1 hous Simile of the Sun (507A f f )
2 Dianoia Divided Line (509D f f )
3 Pistis The Educational Curriculiuu
4 Eikasia rlllegory of the Cave (514A
(521C ff.)
218 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
sunlight, to suggest the progress he has in mind from confused to clear and
scientific knowledge: the form of the good is like the sun. (Notice that al-
though this falls on the bottom level of the four ways of knowing, it is both
true and edifying: the low status of eikasia comes from the fact that it is
unproven, and the hearer has not investigated its truth for himself.) On the
third level of the line falls the diagram of the divided line itself: if we accept
this as an abstract table of kinds and levels of knowledge, we can locate
the form of the good at the very top of the line. On the highest level, Plato
can only say that direct knowledge of the good is like a direct vision of the
sun; we recognize it clearly, and see its causal role, but cannot communicate
this insight except indirectly - by metaphor, story, diagram, simile. There is
also an account, on the level of pistis of what the good is; this account pro-
ceeds to tell us, on an operational and experimental level, what course of
studies we would have to follow to come to know the good. Thus the ideal
curriculum in Republic vii is one of four accounts of the ascent to clear
knowledge of fact and value; it must be taken in context with the other three,
but in that context it is likely to be the most useful to a modern reader of
all four.
There are certain difficulties in context, and some matters of historic
background, that should be discussed before we proceed to this ideal curric-
uIum in more detail. To begin with, the diagram of the divided line which
we have discussed, although it has been admired for over two thousand years
as a clear explanatory figure, is described in such a way that it cannot be
drawn! The difficulty is, that Plato wants to combine two ideas in his figure.
On the one hand, since the successive levels of knowledge are unequal in
clarity, the segments should differ in length to represent this property. But
the stages of learning are not discontinuous: each time, it is the same method
of synthesis that relates successive levels; and Plato suggests this analogy
( anabgi a in Platos Greek can mean proportion as well as similarity) by
suggesting that the same analogy should relate the segments in the diagram.
These two specifications cannot be combined in a single figure, since if we
divide the whole line, then re-divide each part in the same ratio, the second
and third segments cannot be ~nequal .~6 Probably the moral is that we
should not put too much faith in diagrams, even the best ones. The synthesis
we need to explain the continuity of the learning process and the discontinuity
of its products on the four levels of the line is not adequately represented by
our figure.
A second preliminary problem in the recovery of the course in dialectic
is the emphasis on mathematics as a necessary preliminary training. Here
%For, if a line of length x is cut then each segment re-cut i n ratio m/n, with m
unequal to n, one division of one segment will have the length (n/x)m, one division of the
otheir m/x(n) , thus the two will be equal. I n the line, this equality would hold between
the segments representing pistis and dianoiu. One can draw very diverse conclusions from
this property, as can be seen by comparing W. Fite, The Plutonic Legend, New York and
London, 1934, p. 251 and R. S. Brunibaugh, Platos Divided Line, Review of Metaphysics,
V (1952), pp. 533-534.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 219
historical information is of some help; even if the Pythagoreans were not
mentioned (as they are) in Platos description of an intermediate ten years of
study of mathematics, we would want to see whether their influence can be
traced in the Republic. One point on which all scholars agree is that it can.
The most exciting scientific breakthrough, just before Platos time, had been
the Pythagorean discovery of the power of mathematics as a research tool
in aesthetics and natural science.27 In 390 B.C., shortly before the Republic
was written, Plato had visited one of the leading exponents of this mathematical
tradition in South Italy. His friend, Archytas, both a great mathematician and
repeatedly elected mayor of Tarentum, was confident that the methods of
mathematics would be as effective in social science as they had already proven
to be in natural science.= It was after this visit to Archytas that Plat0 re-
turned to Athens to found the Academy - the first western university. The
Academy was to be a research center in which lawyers, mathematicians and
philosophers would work together on problems of social and natural science.
This historical setting helps us to see why Plato thought that a thorough
grounding in the methods of mathematics would be necessary as preparatory
training for legislators who were to operate on a basis of scientific fact as
opposed to self-interest, guesswork, or popular opinion. Platos stress on the
uselessness, mental discipline, and difficulty of his mathematical program make
more sense when we recognize that this mathematical training is the middle
term separating the empirical politician (on the first or second level of the
divided line in the kind of knowledge he employs) from the disinterested
expert in human welfare (whose knowledge must lie at the fourth level of
the line).
The assumption of transfer of training which Plato makes in the move
from mathematics to dialectic to legislation in his program can be explained
and, at very least in part, justified, when we consider the assumption in its
relation to this background of historic fact. The first step in the university
work, Plato tells us, will be a survey of the five mathematical sciences, to see
what they have in common. In context, Plato also tells us what this is: an
axiomatic-deductive method, reasoning from general postulates to detailed
explanations and conclusions. (There is an anticipation here, however general,
of our modern formal logic, which makes precisely such a generalization, just
27The doctrines of the early Pythagoreans, as distinct from extensions made by the
Academy and attributions dating from Hellenistic Neo-Pythagoreanism, remain somewhat
clusive. See J . Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th edn., London 1930; G. S. Kirk and J .E.
Raven, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge, 1959; and A. E. Taylors monumental
Commentary on Platos Timaeus, Oxford, 1928. Taylors work should be used, however,
with the recognition that most scholars, i n opposition to its thesis, accept the science of
the dialogue as Platos own (cf. F. M. Cornford, Platos Cosmology, New York, 1959).
%For Archytas, see Taylor, Pluto; Freeman, Ancilla; Sir T. M. Heath, History of Greek
Mathematics, (2 vols., Oxford, 1921), I, 213-216; also P. M. Schuhl, LOeuvre de Platon,
Paris, 1953. The attitude expressed in the fragments attributed to Archytas seems entirely
characteristic of Pythagorean thought in this period, whatever final judgment we have as
to their authenticity. Compare, for example, Aristotles account in Politics ii of the ideas
of Hippodamus of Thurium, the Pythagorean inventor of city-planning, with his scheme
for a triadic constitution.
220 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
as the Pythagorean hope of systematizing and tidying human affairs by apply-
ing their scientific tools was an intuitive glimmer of the ideal of our modern
social sciences. )
Now, having developed this gcneral method, probably within the first
year, the students are taught within four years more to become expert in the
tfleory of human nature and conduct. (With a certain realistic caution, Plato
suggests that skill in applying the theory to particular cases requires experi-
ence, and will take much longer.) We already know that some vision of the
good climaxes the course in dialectic. But it is surprising that this course,
which is called the keystone in the arch of education, is not described
further by Plato except for its contrast with the hypothetical foundations
of mathematics. Does this mean that Plato had no definite content in mind,
and left this curricular spot open as a blank check to challenge and be filled
in by future philosophers? It might well seem so, from the content later
scholars have supplied. This ranges all the way from a nebulous mystical
vision to a precise deduction of all the details of history from the good as
premiss.
On the other hand, it is clear that one step in the training of legislators
must be an investigation of theories of human nature and conduct, applying
the logical form learned from study of mathematical systems to this new
content. It must be dialectic that carries out, or at least sets the theoretical
frame for, this extension, if the Platonic curriculum is to serve its proper
function. Now, the first two books of the Republic itself are exactly this
building up of competing general theories of human nature, from which
different analyses of the origin and value of justice are shown to follow
ded~ctively.~9
The point is important enough to examine in more detail, since it suggests
that Plato was so brief in the most important section of his curricular outline
because the dialectic of the university is being illustrated by the Republic
itself. At the outset, this notion is given some plausibility by the fact that we
have already seen in the early dialogue that the concrete situation illustrates
the abstract discussion: the dialogue is an example of what it is about.
We can show that Republic i and ii illustrate the progression from
hearsay to general hypothesis by locating successive speakers and positions
on the divided line. Cephalus, the first speaker, and Polemarchus, his son, bot?l
hold ideas of justice that represent hearsay, the pre-critical lowest type of
knowledge. The father, a retired shield manufacturer, is a good man, but his
thinking has not gone beyond the business ethics of his associates. What
they all say is that jus~tice or honesty (Platos term has a wider meaning
than our justice) consists in meeting business obligations. His son, Polemar-
chus, is like a modern high-school student who has grown up watching
Western programs on television. He takes his idea from literature, to each
29This point is well developed in P. Desjardins, The F07-m of Platonic Inquiry, Ph.D.
diss., New Haven, 1959.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 221
his due, but at first sees the issue as simply one of people on black horses
or on white; help the good ones, and shoot the bad. This makes Socrates
line of questioning, directing the boys attention to the complexity of real life
situations, an appropriate one.
With the next speaker, Thrasymachus, we move beyond poetry and
platitude, for he is a lawyer and teacher of law who speaks, perhaps bitterly,
from extensive experience, and an inside knowledge of the technical side of
law and its administration. Though he has a working rule to offer (justice
is what the courts do; and the courts are instruments of those in power),
Thrasymachus has not developed any general theory to explain why men and
courts behave as they do. Socrates presses him toward such a generalization,
but the theory does not emerge until Glaucon states it in Book ii. (The
modern reader will be reminded by Thrasymachus slogan of the position of
contemporary legal positivism.)
One of the few things which Socrates, in spite of his frequently professed
ignorance, did claim to know with certainty was that justice has intrinsic
value; it is good in itself, not simply as a means to power, prestige, or profit.
Glaucon, an intelligent young man, older and wiser than Polemarchus (he is
about the age at which students in the Republic would enter the university)
puts Socrates notion under attack by generalizing what has been said into a
theory which today we would call one of social contract. Sounding like
Hobbes (or Machiavelli or J ames Burnham) Glaucon argues: 1) that men are
by nature aggressive and hostile; they fear and envy each other; 2) that
societies are formed because fear outweighs envy: the chance of being harmed
is greater than that of gain for oneself; 3) when power is given to a sovereign,
he will prevent his subjects from harming each other; 4) that men obey laws,
and are just, only through fear and reluctantly. Glaucons brother, Adeimantus,
(his older brother, perhaps now at the age where students in the ideal state
would be gaining experience in applying theory) goes on to confirm Glaucons
conclusion that justice is not an intrinsic good by a critique of what parents,
priests, and pedagogues do and say. They all seem to teach that honesty is
the best policy because it pays.
Here we have reached the level of dianoia of the divided line; the next
step should be to see whether the hypothesis in fact covers all phenomena
and whether there cannot be an alternative, equally consistent, general theory.
This is the step next taken by Socrates, setting beside the social contract
another view, generically similar to Marxist theories, that: 1) men are by
nature greedy but benevolent; 2) society is formed for the increased produc-
tion of commodities that can result from division of labor; 3) that justice i s
a natural equalization of production and distribution. Socrates counter-theory
is developed in two stages, because there is a distinction between wants
and needs. The simplest model, a rustic cooperative, operating full time to
subsist on roasted acorns, seems too primitive to qualify as a human society,
and Socrates traces the operation of economic determinism in a more com-
plex state. Since demand (Socrates wants) can increase without limit, but
needs (necessities for survival) are limited, and since new suppliers arise
222 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
in society to satisfy new demands, we get a topheavy structure in which
there are more persons catering to non-essential demand than any initial
resources can support; the result must be territorial expansion.
Both of these theories are attractive but neither seems adequate to Plato
(and the history of political theory has shown that elaborate refinements are
in fact necessary if either is even to approximate adequacy). Using a fictitious
model Socrates asks whether a synthesis into some third and better theory is
not possible. The problem is that of harmonizing the aggressive and appetitive
aspects of human nature: the solution offered is one in which education in
gymnastic and music make men reasonable in their wants and gentle in their
manners. For such a course, the literature which sets models of virtue must
be carefully selected; we will remember Polemarchus trust in poetry as his
authority.
The discussion of principles of selection of educational material proceeds
through Book iii, and ends, in iv, in a theory of ethical and social value.
Without tracing it that far, however, the thesis that the Republic is itself
illustrating the method it recommends for philosophic education seems con-
firmed. The vision of the good comes as a synthesis of formal logic and ethics,
with a background of aesthetics presupposed. I t remains an abstract recogni-
tion of the essential value properties of good theories and good people
and communities, but it is not presented to us as a magical, wholly undefined
curricular x, as some readers of Plato have thought. (I t seems that here,
too, Plato has an insight that later philosophy has sometimes shared - the
notion that there should be an axiology, a general theory of value - but
here the twentieth century is still not in a position to say, as we can with
formal logic, whether such a science is possible, or what its contents are.)
This is a plausible, original, if somewhat unorthodox interpretation, which
has the virtues of making the curriculum functional and inteIligible, of ex-
plaining the structure of Republic i-iv and vi-vii, and of showing why the
detail of higher education in vii is treated formally and briefly.30
We must take another look at the second stage of the curriculum for
Utopia before we can offer a final summary of the philosophic presuppositions
of the three-level system of education. In the background of this plan for
secondary education are the two groups of thinkers already mentioned, the
humanistic Sophists and the scientific-mathematical Pythagoreans. The whole
stress of this curriculum is anti-Sophistic in its repeated rejection of immediate
utility or sensible experience in favor of deductive abstract thought, working
with ideal constructs.31 It goes beyond the Pythagoreans in its recognition
30It is also possible that while Plato thought he had carried forward his discussion of
justice to a satisfactory conclusion, he had not found a clear general formulation of the
rults of method used in getting the result. The attempt to establish critical rules for valid
dialectic is a central concern of one group of later dialogues which were written after the
Republ i c, particularly the Sophist and Statesman.
31For an excellent discussion of this point, see F. S. C. Northrop, Greek Mathematics
and philosophy, in Essays i n Hnnor of Al f red Nort h Whi t ehead, ed. 0. Lee, New York,
1936, and Th e Complexity of LegoZ nnd Elhical Experience, New Haven, 1959.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 223
that mathematical description, without some other criteria, cannot resolve
problems of value, being limited to descriptive truth, formal consistency, and
accuracy.32 I t also goes beyond the Pythagoreans in its consistent program
for developing pure mathematics: beyond plane geometry and number-
theory, the actual Pythagorean research (for example, in music and astronomy)
seemed to Plato to have completely muddled experimental confirmation with
theory construction. Platos curriculum called for the mathematical develop-
ment of several sciences that have not been invented as yet - but that were
brilliantly, within Platos lifetime by associates of the Academy (solid geometry
by Theaetetus; harmonics, as a general theory of proportion, by Eudoxus ) .33
In the light of this contextual stress on the abstract intellectual character
of mathematics, it would be an anticlimax and an interruption of the main
line of thought to emphasize the usefulncss of this secondary curriculum for
auxiliaries. But it would not be good planning to provide ten years of study
which were neither useful nor terminal for those of the select group of
students who remained executives and soldiers, and did not go on to the
university. Since Plato is not usually wasteful in this way in his programs
and planning, perhaps we should take the playing-down of the utility of this
secondary education for its students with a good many grains of salt. For
mathematical deduction from unchallenged postulates is exactly the kind of
reasoning that the auxiliaries of the Republic, who execute legislative policies,
must use. They do not question decisions of policy, but they must find ways
to implement them without the ethical inconsistency of a choice of means
that would destroy the ends intended by the law.34
We must notice, too, that Plato has reversed what was standard Pytha-
gorean order in the sequence of his mathematical studies. Instead of culmi-
nating and ending in arithmetic, as the Pythagoreans would have had it do,
this scheme moves from numbers to surfaces to solids to motions to a general
theory of relations, catching increasingly more organized and complex formal
relational patterns in the ascent.
These considerations are relevant to determining the intention of this
secondary education; but when these allowances are all made, ten years still
seems to overestimate by a good deal the time required for learning a mathe-
matical way of thought ( a way of thought, however, not simply a set of
theorems, for only in this way could there be transfer of training). The most
striking feature of the plan is its simultaneous realization of the two objectives
of recognition of the abstract elegance of mathematics, and mastery of tools
suited to capture more and more complex empirical phenomena.
32Plato is most explicit on this point in his contrast of descriptive and normative
33Heath, History, I, 209-212 (Theaetetus) ; 325-335 (Eudoxus) .
3lRepublic ix. 582D: the philosopher as master of phronesis and logos has the right
measure, Stutesnzun 284A ff., especially 2854-B.
criteria and techniques for judging and planning his experience.
224 EDUCATIONAL THEXIRY
I V
I n conclusion, I will try to give a concise summary of the metaphysical
presuppositions that are operative in the two detailed Platonic contexts we
have been examining.35 It must be understood that such a summary is
offered in a Platonic spirit, as an invitation to shared discussion. An adequate
adaptation and defense of the complete Platonic philosophical position in
contemporary terms can be developed; a first step is suggested below, in
Appendix C.
Some of the ideas that are presupposed are the following. 1. It is assumed
to be possible to develop theories of society, ethics, and psychology on the
model of the deductive proofs of mathematics. This means for Plato, that one
is committed to the existence of some objective basis for these theories: to
the conviction that there is such a thing as human nature, that there are some
objecive criteria of ualue, and that some kinds of human excellence can be
directly recognized as having intrinsic value. The alternatives of existentialism,
open instrumentalism, or relativism seem to the Platonist to make a grounded
theory impossible. (I t is interesting to note, historically, that Dewey and
Plato would agree, as against Aristotle and the Sophists, that an accurate
science of society is possible. )
We must recur to the Meno for a second point. When we try to find
out what we mean by a word such as justice, it seems true that there is,
however unclearly we recognize it, some objective meaning. Plato assumes
that this is not an illusion; one consideration that leads to the theory of
forms is that they serve this The paradigm case is geometry,
where study of a familiar figure leads us to remember new, objectively
present properties. ( This use of mathematics has been challenged; evidently,
the modern Platonist must side with Whitehead or Einstein in interpreting
mathematics rather than with Kant or Hume. )
Further, it is assumed that there is a causal connection between what
is reasonable and what is true. I n general, we discard an unreasonable (inter-
nally inconsistent) theory out of hand. For Plato, logic applies to relations of
fact as well as thought because the interrelated system of the forms imposes
limitations on their instances. For example, if the form of one is unequal
to that of two, one apple is also, and necessarily, unequal to two apples.
The sequence of mathematical studies explores progressively more compIex
types of this systematic connection of forms. I n arithmetic, one deals with
relations of sets either identical or non-identical in number; in geometry, we
also add relations of inclusion, exclusion, congruence, and commensurability;
with harmonics, our formal study will trace every pattern of quantitative
similarity and difference that can be represented by analogy or proportion.
The main difference between the scope of harmonics and dialectic (in which
2.
3.
35This list is similar 10, and may be compared with, A. N. Whiteheads excellent
36Comparc Parinenides 135.4, where the old philosopher agrees with young Socrates
summary of PIatos insights, Adventures of Ideas, (New York, 1833), Chap. ix.
that if there were no forms, understanding would have nothing on which to rest.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 225
we will trace all types of relations among any ordered forms) is the restric-
tion of the range of variables to quantities in the former study.
The forms also are ideals which exercise a causal attraction on us;
we recognize the good, when we encounter it, and it is this attraction which
gives our desires and activities their engagement and direction. The Platonic
theory (in this resembling the contemporary work of Whitehead and Paul
Weiss) thus makes ideals an important mode and the causal aspect of reality.37
5. There is a convergence of the true, the beautiful, and the good; so
that all three levels of education, aesthetic, logical, and dialectical, are com-
patible and have a common aim.
6. The excellence of any ordered, self-directing system requires four
conditions, which in the case of the state or the human soul are called
virtues; these are wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. They have
intrinsic value and a proper order of subordination, both of which we recognize
directly when we know them by ourselves realizing them.
There are many other corollary presuppositions, but this set of six seems
sufficient to characterize and develop the pure philosophy that is the context
for the discussions of education in the Meno and Republic.
4.
Given this frame of reference, we may want to agree that in the Republic
Plato exaggerates his accounts lack of immediate social practicability to keep
reminding us of the distance and difference between the practical politician
of his (or any later) day and the disinterested, scientifically trained ideal
legislator of the model society. I n this model, much as the absence of self-
interest on the ideal rulers part is insured by removal of all private family
ties and property, the accuracy of the rulers theory is insured by the ten year
retreat from anti-theoretical experience into the mathematical curriculum.
A major concern of several of Platos later dialogues is to find some
measure of the distance that separates such ideals as the Republics model
state from historic fact and possi bi l i t~.~~ An accompanying result is a con-
siderable modification, in the educational statutes of the Laws, of the Repub-
lics ideal system of education - a modification of which later admirers of
the quadrivium did not, perhaps, take sufficient account.
For the present, however, we will be satisfied if we have been able to
add something to the interpretation of the Meno experiment and the divided
line in a larger context of Platos philosophy of education.
37This is most explicitly stated i n Socrates speech in the Symposium.
38The Timaeus deals with the limitations which spacc and time impose on the
realization of form. (I t is in this connection that Ilatos notions of the receptacle and
the physical elements which Whitehcad included in his list appear.) The Critias, never
completed, was to have been a realistic history of a war i n which ancient Athens, a city
very similar to the state of the Republic, was able to survive and win a war against
Atlantis, an aggressive state less virtuous but far larger and more powerful.
226 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
APPENDIX A: Equality of Opportunity in Platos Republic?
Partly through historical accident, the problem of determining the part
that heredity is assumed to play in the Republic presents a multiplicity of
technical problems to the modern reader. They are important technicalities
only because of their relation to the hereditary character of the aristocratic
class of rulers. If hereditary genius runs only in some gifted families, the
provision that any child may become a ruler is a pure formality, for we would
know that only certain parents could have children who were born rulers.
If he assumed this to be the case, the fact that Plato, concentrating on the
education of his auxiliaries and rulers, nowhere says explicitly that artisans
children will receive an elementary education, may be a deliberate omission.
It would seem clear that if, as Plato says, selection for secondary and higher
education is to be solely by ability and character, and if the elementary
school provides the ground for testing and rating, every child would have to
have an elementary education, unless the rulers could know in advance that
for some, their parentage would make this wasteful.
A series of detailed studies of pre-Platonic genetics and Platos invention
of eugenics as a social application of this current theory, leads to the conclu-
sion that theoretically science showed that children of any parentage could
have any level of ability (as far as the artisan-auxiliary-guardian scale is the
one used to classify parents). At the same time, the theory indicated a higher
probability of talented parents having gifted children. The Myth of Metals
in the RepubZic, which presents these results in a story, is then not, as it is
often mistranslated, a royal lie, but a fiction - it is not literally true, but
is a clear popular way of presenting technical scientific conclusions.39
A further argument for believing that Plato actually intended to prescribe
his elementary education in music and gymnastics for every child is found
in the later discussion of the need of temperance among all classes of the
state. I n Book ii, we are told that only a sound education can correct the
propensities of human appetite to reach beyond a temperate limit, and, if
this is so it would follow that only such training can insure the temperance
of the artisan class. Grant that this class has only civic or popular virtue,
as opposed to philosophic, it still should be true, unless Plato has completely
turned his back on the ideas of the Meno, that this virtue must be a state
of character resulting from their own conscious motivation and choice. This
consideration at once suggests, as a second question, how far the Republic
does or does not lose sight of the individual in its model society, particularly
since that model society has so often been interpreted and criticized as
closed and totalitarian.
39The contioveiy centers on RePubZic viii. 546A ff., the Nuptial Number, a passage
which continues to defy interpretation. See Levinson, op. cit., .4ppendix XII. The history of
genetics in the pre-Platonic period still remains relatively unexplored.
PLATOS PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 227
APPENDIX B: The State and the Individual in the Republic.
I n Democracy and Education, J ohn Dewey saw Platos intention in the
Republic as that of giving each individual the training and the social role in
which he would best realize his own aptitudes and follow his own interests.
Dewey has only two criticisms of this idea: he is afraid that the program of
eugenics comes from a belief in hereditary aristocracy, and he is sure the
three types of personality provided for by the categories of producer, athlete,
and scholar is almost infinitely too small a selection. Later scholarship, dis-
cussed in Appendix A. above, suggests that Plato would have agreed that a
hereditary ruling class was objectionable, and that to provide one was not his
expectation or intention. On the second point, it is worth noting that Plato
has other lists which admit more types of vocational aptitude and tempera-
ment; the Phuedrus has nine, the Statesman an indefinite continuous range,
and it has been suggested that the geometrical number of Republic viii
provides for 243. I t is not, admittedly, our own list; and Plato would be much
less tolerant of most (234) of the 243 careers he envisages as the possible
interactions of heredity (nature) and environment (leading to formation of a
second nature) than Dewey would be.
But what Dewey saw, and what such more recent scholars as Levinson
and Murphy have shown in more detail, is that Platos ideal was meant to
provide maximum pleasure, happiness, and self-realization for every individual
citizen. This question is dismissed as not immediately relevant in Book vi, but
is returned to in Book ix, where the above answer is given. This is why
Plato can insist so strongly in Book iv that the consent of the governed is
essential to the authority of the rulers and their executives: each man, by his
own criteria, finds this social order one to his liking
More generally put, justice involves two things in any complex system:
each part must make its own proper contribution to the whole, but the opera-
tion of that whole would be unjust if it were to destroy or deform any part.
There are no slaves in the Republic itself, though the notion of universal
international justice was not enough developed to prevent Plato from suggesting
that captured barbarians, if not fellow Hellenes, might be sold into foreign
slavery.
APPENDIX C: Of Human Freedom.
I n the Myth of Er at the end of the Republic, each soul chooses from a
showcase of roles the life it will live in its next incarnation, and it is then
bound by that choice. The allegorical machinery suggests a fatalism which,
taken in connection with the stress on heredity and environment as determi-
nants of character, goes very poorly with the attitude we have seen in the
Meno: that anyone can, by taking thought, choose to become wiser and better.
Luckily, in two later passages Plato uses the same imagery in more literal
statements of the intended moral of his myth, which make it clear that the
allegorical suggestion is purposely at odds, in some respects, with the storys
moral,
228 EDUCATIONAL THEORY
In the Theaetetus, we read that each of us holds before his mind some
picture of the person he wants to become, and by successive free choices,
becomes what he has chosen. These patterns and choices are so like those in
our myth, that it seems clear the moral of the story of reincarnation is meant
to apply to each moment of our everyday decisions, not to be a one-time
stand between existences. In the Epinomis we learn that the whole cosmic
system is governed by laws which we cannot reverse. The man who chooses
to be unjust is setting himself to change the entire universe if he expects his
injustices to harmonize with the real order; and to reverse the inexorable
working of the whole cosmic machine is not within our power of choice.
This is at least part of the point suggested allegorically by the goddess,
Necessity, showing each soul a cross-section cosmic model.
The showcase of sample lives suggests that although we are attracted
by the ideal forms, we do not always nor indeed often recognize the real
sources of attraction. Each form can have many more or less complete out-
lines or projections as it is reflected in the mirror of space and time, and we
may select any of these under the impression that it is the ideal we feel
drawn toward. Platos universe is thus not such a closed, arid system devoid
of new possibility as some readers have thought. In future discussion, I hope
to explore the possibility that Whiteheads eternal objects (attractive en-
visaged abstract possibilities) are not, as they are sometimes taken to be, a
weakened sort of Platonic form, but are instead exactly the roles in Platos
myth of choice and possibility.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen