The Role of Education in Plato’s Republic

The fibre and significance of pedagogics with regard to semipolitical and social institutions is a heart-to-heart that has interested political philosophers for millennia. In particular, the views of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, as evidence in The Republic, and of the pre-Ro valettic philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, nonplus a striking juxtaposition of the two extremes of the ongoing philosophical and political debate over the hightail it and value of tillage.In this paper, I depart argue that Rousseaus repudiation of upbringing, while imperfect and offering no amends to the ills it disparages, is superior inasmuch as it comes closer to the truth of things than does Platos idealized conceptions. To do so, I ordain first examine Platos interpretation of the employment of education and its function in shaping the structure of society and government and in producing intelligent citizens. I will then introduce Rousseaus vi ew of education and the prejudicious effects of the civilized culture which it evolves, and using this view, will attempt to expound the naivete and over-idealization of Platos notions.Finally, I will attempt to demonstrate that it is Rousseaus view, rather than Platos, that is at long last more significant in assessing the actual (vs. idealized) merits (or lack thereof, in Rousseaus case) by which education should be judged with regard to the nurturance of adept citizens. For Plato, the question of the role of education arises near the end of Book II (377e), after a treatment of both the necessary and consequent attri preciselyes of Socrates kallipolis or exalted City.Such a city, Socrates argues, will, before long, have need of both a specialization of cut into (in put together for the greatest level of diversity and luxury of reliables to be achieved) and of the organisation of a class of Guardians to protect the city from its envious neighbors and maintain enjoin wi thin its walls (i. e. , to police and govern the city). This, in turn, leads inexorably to the question of what attributes the Ideal City will require of its Guardians, and how best to foster such attributes.The early, puerility education of the Guardians, Socrates argues, is the key. What, then, asks Socrates, should children be taught, and when? This quickly leads to a discussion of censorship. Socrates cites a military issue of questionable passages from Homer which cannot, he thinks, be allowed in education, since they represent shabby behavior and encourage the fear of death. The dramatic form of much of this numbers is also suspect it puts unworthy words into the mouths of gods & heroes.Socrates suggests that what we would call direct credit rating must be strictly limited to morally-elevating speech. Nothing can be permitted that compromises the education of the young Guardians, as it is they who will nonp aril day harness and protect the city, and whom the lesser-const ituted citizens of the polis will attempt to emulate, assimilating, via the imitative process of mimesis, to the Myth (or horrible lie) of the Ideal City in which justice is achieved when every wiz assumes their proper role in society.The process of mimesis, is, of course, yet another form of education, in which those of straighten out and Bronze natures atomic number 18 instructed and inspired by the superior intelligence and constituent of the Gold and Silver members of the Guardian class. It is therefore a form of education without which the polis cannot operate. Thus, for Guardian and ordinary citizen alike, the education of the young and the continuing instruction of the people are crucial. In addition to these aspects, Plato also conceives of another function of education, and superstar which is quite significant in its relation to Rousseaus views.For Plato, education and ethics are interdependent. To be ethical, in turn, requires a twofold movement movement off from i mmersion in concrete affairs to thinking and vision of electrostatic order and structures (such as justice) and then movement back from dialectic to connection and re-attachment in publicly affairs. It is a temptation to become an abstract scholar. exactly the vision of the good is the vision of what is good for unrivalledself and the city of the common good.If one does not return to help his fellow human beings, he becomes egoistical and in time will be less able to cope with what is good, what is best. An unselfish devotion to the good requires an unselfish devotion to the realization of this good in human affairs. Just as the purpose of understanding order and limits in ones own life is to bring about order and barricade in ones own character and desires, the understanding of justice requires application in the public sphere (through education). A man who forgets the polis is like a man who forgets he has a body.Plato thus advocates educating both the body and the city ( for one needs both), not turning ones back on them. If education is, for Plato, the sum by which man comes to fully realize (through society) his potential as a human being and by which society as a self-colored is in turn elevated, for Rousseau it is quite the opposite. Education, argues Rousseau, does not elevate the souls of men but rather corrodes them. The noble mimesis which lies at the heart of education in Platos kallipolis is for Rousseau scarce a slavish mimicry of the tired ideas of antiquity.The ill effects of this imitation are manifold. Firstly, argues Rousseau, when we devote ourselves to the learning of old ideas, we stifle our own creativeness and originality. Where is there room for original thought, when, in our incessant efforts to impress one another with our erudition, we are constantly spouting the ideas of others? In a world devoid of originality, the mark of greatness, intelligence, and virtue is reduced to nothing more than our mightiness to please ot hers by reciting the wisdom of the past.This emphasis on originality is in pronounced contrast with Plato, who finds no value in originality, deeming it antithetical to a polis otherwise unified by shared Myths of the Ideal City and of Metals. Rousseau rejects this unity, rightly denouncing it as a form of slavery , in which humanitys intrinsical condenser for spontaneous, original self-expression is replaced with the yoking. of the mind and the will to the ideas of others, who are often long dead.In addition to suppressing the innate human need for originality, education (and the appetite for culture and sophistication that it engenders) causes us to conceal ourselves, to mask our true natures, desires, and emotions. We become arranged and shallow, using our social amenities and our knowledge of literature, etc. , to present a pleasing but deceptive face to the world, a notion quite at odds with the ideas of Plato. We assume, in Rousseaus words, the appearance of all virtues, without being in possession of one of them.Finally, argues Rousseau, rather than strengthening our minds and bodies and (a critical point) moving us towards that which is ethical, as Plato contends, education and elegance effeminate and weaken us physically and ( perchance most significantly) mentally, and cause us, in this weakness, to stoop to every manner of ungodliness and injustice against one another. External ornaments, writes Rousseau, are no less external to virtue, which is the strength and activity of the mind.The honest man is an athlete, who loves to wrestle stark new he scorns all those vile trappings, which prevent the exertion of his strength, and were, for the most part, invented only to conceal some deformity. Virtue, as opposed to Platos conception, is an action, and results not from the imitation inherent in mimesis, but rather in the activity in the exercise of the body, mind and soul. Education, however, demands imitation, demands a modeling upon what h as been successful. How, then, do we rightly assess the merits of education with regard to its it molding of the public character in its ability to produce good citizens.The answer to this hinges, I submit, on how we choose to define the good citizen. Clearly, if obedience (or assimilation to a political ideology, or perhaps voluntary servitude) is the hallmark of the good citizen, then we must regard Platos leaning towards education as the proper one. However, obedience, despite its obvious centrality to the smooth operating theatre of society (as we would have social chaos were it completely absent), has its useful limits. Over-assimilation to a political idea or blueprint is every bit as dangerous indeed, far more so as the utter under-assimilation of anarchy.For those habituated to dispute this, I would urge them to review the history of Nazi Germany as perhaps the definitive example of what sad, awful spectacles of injustice we earthly concern are capable of when we trad e in our mental and spiritual familiarity for the convenient apathy and faceless anonymity of the political ideal. Furthermore, if , as Rousseau contends, our civilization is such that, Sincere friendship, real esteem, and perfect confidence in each other are banished from among men, what is the quality of the society for which education any modern education purports to prepares us?When, Jealousy, suspicion, fear coldness, reserve, hate, and fraud lie constantly concealed under a like and deceitful veil of politeness, what is left to us to educate citizens for, other than the amusement we seem to derive in pedantic displays of hoary knowledge? If we gain the civility from civilization, what remains to us that any education will remedy?