Plato's Republic and Laws

The “Athenian” in Plato’s late dialogue, the Laws, calls education “the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have.” To reach that pinnacle of excellence, teaching and learning must aim at true education, a recurrent problem of definition and exploration in Plato’s many dialogues.

In Werner Jaeger’s summary of Socrates’ vision, “Education is not the cultivation of certain branches of knowledge. . . . The real essence of education is that it enables men to reach the true aim of their lives.” And in the Laws, that education equips both men and women for a good life in the city-state.

True education, therefore, presupposes that we know and pursue man’s truest, highest, distinctive ends—that is, the aims appropriate to man as man, to the whole human being, and not to some fragment of man, and certainly not as if man were less than human.

This ancient understanding of education as aimed primarily at the formation of whole human beings lies at the heart of what Wendell Berry describes as the “old norm” (see “The Loss of the University”). Under the old norm, true education could not be conceived of as separate from character formation, as if we dared instruct only the mind and not the will and imagination of the young. In practice, as any teacher knows, these things cannot be separated. The question is not whether a teacher will form both mind and heart, but whether a teacher will form the mind, will, and imagination well, or warp them negligently or twist them perversely. The whole child will be formed regardless. This is one of things that makes teaching so frightening, burdensome, and rewarding. Education is a weighty business for everyone involved.

Our discussion this week among the students and teachers enrolled in the “Great Beginnings” webinar covered a lot of ground using only a few selections from Plato’s dialogues. I hope these readings and discussions whet the appetite for the complete works—a long but rewarding task.

With the help of Book V from the Republic, we explored the “Great Chain of Being” that stretches from Pure or Absolute Being at the top down to Absolute Non-Existence at the bottom; from true Knowledge at the top, through the realm of Opinion, down to Ignorance at the very bottom.

Human beings, we discovered, stand in the middle of things. They participate in two realms simultaneously. This is what makes life so complicated. Cows are content, but man is not. He knows that there must be more than this transient world of ceaseless, restless, frustrating change and unfulfilled desires. At least he is discontent if his eyes have been opened and he recognizes the distractions and shifting shadows of life on earth. The eternal, permanent, immutable, highest realm of Truth, Justice, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness lies open to his reason. Above him lies the One in contrast to the Many of the world of his senses. The One provides a standard by which to measure the deficiencies of this world. Man’s city-states achieve only imperfect justice, peace, beauty, and happiness in this shadowy temporal realm.

And yet life in the city can be improved, especially through the education of the young. Their affections can be directed toward Truth. They can be drawn to love what they ought to love and to hate what they ought to hate. They can be turned to long for the “real object” and not just the “copy,” to desire true knowledge and shun the mere opinion of the multitude. All of this is wrapped up in the examined life, the only life worth living, in Socrates’ famous injunction.

In Book VI, Plato, through the voice of Socrates, lays out some of the prerequisites for the formation of the true philosopher. These are dispositions and character traits that the eager student brings to the task of education and that the teacher cultivates. These attributes appear again and again in the great tradition of liberal learning. The Christian humanist Roger Ascham (1515-1568) will return to these qualities of heart and mind, as will political philosopher Eric Vogelin (1901-1985) and many others.

The truly educated human being must be a lover of truth and a hater of falsehood. He must be temperate and not covetousness, liberal rather than obsessed with getting and spending. He must not be cowardly, or mean, or boastful, or ever unjust or cruel in his conduct toward others. He must delight in learning, have a sense of proportion, a gracious mind, and possess a good memory.

My sense is that by “good memory” Socrates/Plato does not mean, or merely mean, an ability to retain information. Good memory stands in opposition to the forgetful soul, forgetful, that is, of man’s true nature and ultimate ends, the context that animates education with its proper aims.

I encourage you to read or reread the “Allegory of the Cave” from Book VII of The Republic. This is Plato/Socrates’ parable of education, one of the most durable metaphors for the turning and ascent from the shifting shadows of this transient life toward the “really real” of truth.

Be ready to encounter teachings in Plato that will startle, puzzle, or annoy you. Be an active participant when you read Plato and any other author. Think, examine, reflect. You will find in both The Republic and The Laws that Plato depicts a city-state that has total control over education. Indeed, children belong to the polis first and not to their families. You will also find the human body depicted as a prison house for the soul. Plato takes the disparagement of the physical realm of particularity, multiplicity, and change very far, to a degree unknown to ancient Judaism and later Christianity.

Teachers will need to discern what to adopt and what to leave behind at every step in the tradition.