Daniel Vicinanzo

Plato’s Republic: A Guide to Education

The Republic of Plato is a dialogue in which Plato’s teacher Socrates outlines his ideal city. The dialogue first sets out to answer one very important question: what is justice? The story begins with Socrates in the presence of several people, both friends and enemies, to whom he poses the question, ‘What is justice?’ Socrates then goes on to strike down every theory proposed and offers no definition of his own. This brings about the discussion of the ideal city. During this discussion, it is decided that the citizens of the city will be divided into three classes: the auxiliaries, the producers, and the guardians. The guardians are to be a class of citizens above the rest. They will be the defenders and rulers of the city and, therefore, must be the best of the best. This essay will summarize the education that Socrates advocates for the guardians of his city, and then discuss analyze the education of the guardian class in relation to that of Socrates’ own Socratic method to see if Socrates truly believes in the city he is creating. The first mention of the guardians’ education comes after Glaucon wishes to make the city far more luxurious, as he has begun having too much fun making up his own city and cannot imagine his ideal city as austere as the one Socrates has been describing. When
Socrates begins adding some of these luxuries to the city, however, a few problems arise.
For example, additional land will be needed to support the more opulent city which will surely lead to wars and possibly corrupt leadership. Therefore, an elite military force is needed to fight these inevitable wars and protect the city from invaders. In order to be a good soldier, according to Socrates, the guardians must be physically fit and have spirited souls. These spirited souls, however, will lead to aggression and savagery against the city’s own citizens unless their spiritedness is curbed somehow. The solution than, must be in the guardians education. Socrates says that those who are born for a guardian's education must by nature be “philosophic, spirited, swift, and strong,” (republic, 376 c).
This education will come mainly in the subject’s music, gymnastics and “noble lies,”
(414b).
First, Socrates discusses education in music (which includes speeches). He begins with the telling of tales in the earliest years of childhood because that is when people are most formable. Tales must be strictly censored because young children are malleable and absorb all to which they are exposed. Socrates claims, “A young thing can't judge what is hidden sense and what is not; but what he takes into his opinions at that age has a tendency to become hard to eradicate and unchangeable,” (378d). The youth are unable to distinguish between right and wrong and, as a result, collect examples of how not to behave from bad tales; children will only use these bad examples to justify their own bad behavior. Through the telling of carefully thought out tales, mothers will mold their children's souls, (377c). Moreover, children are expected to accept whatever they are told with little free-thought. Socrates says that anything in youth “assimilates itself to the model whose stamp anyone wishes to give to it?” (377b). The content of the noble lies told by to the cities youth is meant to implant and indoctrinate them with a certain ideology and theology. Instead of giving examples of the classic Greek tales, Socrates attacks the great poets, Hesiod and Homer, for creating inappropriate and detrimental tales. He says that these poets' tales include bad lies, which

further unrealistic and misleading images of the gods and heroes, (377e). Gods must never be shown as unjust or the city’s youth will think it admissible and even honorable to practice injustice. Stories must not describe violence among the gods and children must constantly be told that citizens have never held grudges or had disputes with one another,
(378c). Children must be told that the gods are not the cause of all things, only those which are good and just, (380c). By hearing such tales, youths will learn the importance of a unified community and will be reluctant to fight amongst themselves when they are adults. Furthermore, gods cannot be said to punish (unless it is deserved or beneficial to the punished), change form, or lie. By making the gods incapable of dishonesty and connected only with what is good, Socrates distances them from the real world in which dishonesty and deception are ever-present. Separating gods from men prevents improper poetic accounts of the gods from being used as an example for how one should behave.
Rather, children must look only to the guardians of the city and the law for guidance. Noble lies must also foster courage, moderation, and justice. Hades should be praised so that the warriors will not fear death and children should grow up fearing slavery more than death, (386c). The hero of Homer’s Iliad, Achilles, must be absent from all tales, because children cannot see his gross displays of unbridled passion glorified or else they may adopt the practices as acceptable, (388). Additionally, tales cannot include displays of laughter, (389a). Excessive displays of grief and excessive displays of happiness threaten the austere atmosphere that is necessary to raise the guardians in.
Suitable tales must glorify and encourage moderation. They must display obedience to superiors and temperance in drinking, eating, sex, and love of money and possessions,
(389d-390e). Stories absolutely must show bravery in the face of danger and death, (390d).

Most existing tales and histories, Socrates claims, teach inappropriate messages and must be outlawed. They show injustice through the actions of both Gods and men and portray unjust men as living opulent lives while the just live depressed and destitute. Interestingly, these bad messages are the same as Glaucon's and Adeimantus' arguments against the usefulness of justice. Instead of being told existing tales such as those by Homer, children should be given speeches about true justice and virtue, whatever it may be, (392c). Lastly in his discussion of educative music, Socrates addresses the appropriate melody of music with Glaucon. Similar to the content and style of speeches, Socrates allows only temperate and austere melodies. Melodies imitating the sounds and accents of men courageous in the face of danger and those suitable to peaceful men are allowed, but modes suiting inordinate and unchecked passions are not permitted, (399b). Only simple instruments such as the lyre, and pipe are permitted, (399d). Most significantly, Socrates insists that rhythm must follow speech, not vice versa. Every aspect of speech must follow the disposition of an ordered soul; “Good speech, good harmony, good grace, and good rhythm accompany good disposition, not the folly that we endearingly call ‘good disposition,’ but that understanding truly trained to a good and fair disposition.” (400e).
Socrates says that careful crafting of tales is important because they are the most efficient way of properly ordering guardians' souls. Rhythm and harmony quickly invade the soul, so if children are constantly told tales of virtue and justice and never exposed to misleading tales, like “noble puppies” they will learn to love what they know (goodness and justice) and hate what they do not know (injustice), (401d-e). Learning to love what is good and hate what is bad as a child will help them appreciate reasonable speech and find pleasure in living in moderation when grown. By insisting that the highest virtues are acquired

through education and are a matter of refined habit, Socrates opposes Glaucon's desire for base pleasures. Socrates shows him that with the proper education and formation, a life of virtue, including “moderation, courage, liberality, and magnificence,” (402c) but excluding sex and excessive pleasure, will be fulfilling. In other words, through learning real virtue,
Glaucon will find a satisfaction similar to that of the luxuries that he so covets. Next Socrates discusses the gymnastic education of the guardians. Socrates does not preach a difficult gymnastic regimen; instead, he is of the belief that a sound soul will lead to a sound body, and that a healthy intellect ensures a healthy body (403d-e).
Therefore, by eating and drinking moderately and practicing a clear and plain physical fitness plan from youth, the body will be as fit as is needed. Gymnastics, it seems, is mainly responsible for preventing illness and the need for medicine in the city. Medicine,
Socrates says, is only welcome as a means for curing corrigible diseases and should never be used to keep those with chronic conditions or those who cannot work alive. Following his discussion of medicine, Socrates discusses the necessary character of judges in the city.
Like the well-educated guardian, a good judge should not be young, but rather "a late learner of what injustice is" (409b). Although never exposed to injustice personally, he will recognize injustice by its foreignness. This ability to distinguish between good and bad without ever having been directly exposed to the bad is the intended result of the guardians' education. Although music and noble lies are the most integral element in the guardians' education, equilibrium between music and gymnastics is important for the production of moral guardians. Because a purely gymnastic education causes savagery and a purely musical education causes softness, the two must be perfectly balanced. Socrates says,

“The man who makes the finest mixture of gymnastic with music and brings them to his soul in the most proper measure is the one of whom we would most correctly say that he is the most perfectly musical and well harmonized,” (412a). Education in music and gymnastics will be compulsory for youths, and their work ethic, talent and actual progress will be watched and tested throughout their development. Those who steadfastly hold onto the principles inculcated in them by the education will be chosen as guardians and those who rebel against the city's ideology or simply are not cut out for the rigorous grooming process will be rejected. Next, Socrates uses his own teaching method to instruct Glaucon on how to come to know the good. Socrates then progresses to the analogy of the cave in order to explain the process of coming to know the good by means of education. He says, “next, then, make an image of our nature in its education and want of education,” (514a). Socrates describes a cave in which humans are chained and facing a wall. Behind them, puppet-masters carry figurines which cast silhouettes on the wall in front of the prisoners. Because they know nothing else, the captives assume the shadows to be the extent of reality, but what they see and hear and sense is actually only a small component of the knowable world. Glaucon quickly grasps the idea behind the analogy and is immediately engrossed by the image, stating “It's a strange image and strange prisoners you're telling of,” (515a). The image of the cave quickly evokes the memory of Socrates' earlier false tales and noble lies, and it is evident that the new education is meant to free those who dwell in the cave from their ignorant and shortsighted opinions and principles, as opposed to chaining them within the cave as did the earlier method of education. Socrates next shows Glaucon what would happen if someone in the cave was unchained and able to pull himself out of the cave and see reality. At first, he would be pained and confused by the foreign sights. When told that his experience in the cave was not entirely real, he would rebel against the thought, and not without reason, (515d). If he tried to look at his newly discovered world and the sun directly after leaving the darkness of the cave, he would surely be blinded and would want to return to the comfort of his more familiar surroundings, (515e). Socrates asserts that if someone were to drag him
“away from there by force along the rough, steep, upward way, and didn't let him go before he had dragged him out into the light of the sun” (516a), the prisoner would fight and be resentful, and even then, would not be able to see everything at once. Instead, his eyes would adjust slowly. First he would see shadows, then reflections in water, then things themselves, then the night's sky, and finally, the sun--which is an image of the good,
(516b). But once he focuses on what is, he feel more joy than ever before and will never want to return to the cave, (516e-c). Furthermore, if he did try to return to the cave and help the other intellectual captives, they would resent him and call him corrupt and delusional because their reality is still limited to the shadows in the cave, (517a). Through this powerful image of the cave, Socrates shows Glaucon the good and instructs him on how it is to be obtained. “Education is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be. They presumably assert that they put into the soul knowledge that isn't in it, as though they were putting sight into blind eyes…but the present argument, on the other hand…indicates that this power is in the soul of each and that the instrument with which each learns--just as an eye is not able to turn toward the light from the dark without the whole body--must be turned around from that which is coming into being together with the whole soul until it is able to endure looking at that which is and the brightest part of that which is.” (Republic, 518b-c). Although Socrates presents a few methods of education in the Republic, his preferred method which bears his name is difficult to identify because of the melodramatic context of the dialogue. Like the divided line, the dialogue has different meanings and purposes on different levels, making it dangerous to believe everything Socrates says.
When Socrates introduces the cave analogy, one cannot help recognizing the similarities between it and his own actions in the dialogue. Finally, it seems as though Socrates is being genuine. The philosopher's descent into the cave calls back to the first line of the book. It is now apparent that Socrates himself is down in the cave, attempting to help the questioners turn from the dark of ignorance to the light of knowledge and realize what is.
Through his refutation of the opinions of Glaucon, Adeimantus, Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, Socrates battles the city's conventions. Also, because the dialogue is meant to be a defense of philosophy, the education of real philosophers seems more in tune with the theme of the book and Socrates’ preferred teaching style than the education of
“noble-puppy” guardians. After seeing the analogy of the cave, it seems that the entire dialogue has been one big exercise in which Socrates is teaching with his own Socratic
Method. His use of eclectic, and sometimes absurd, imagery and his persistent question asking make it apparent that Socrates is simply trying to lead his pupils to the knowledge of the truth. Socrates' method of question and answer and refuting arguments also realizes meaning after his discussion of the philosopher's return to the cave. By subtly directing the discussion through questions, Socrates allows the ignorant prisoners to unchain themselves and realize the truth. He does not try to tell Glaucon and Adeimantus what to think, as though he were restoring sight in blind eyes, but instead helps them turn around and focus on what is important and true. He leads them toward the light by means of questions and dialectics until they are able to make an account of their knowledge for themselves, (511c-
d). By presenting them with many different viewpoints, he teaches them to look beyond convention and the principles that were taught to them at a young age, and be open to new, somewhat foreign, ideas. Never explicitly telling them what to think, Socrates helps them realize their own, natural potential. In conclusion, early in the dialogue, Socrates suggests that the idea of justice should be sought first in a large city, for it is there that it will be most visible, and then in individuals, (369a). After teaching imagination, Socrates moves onto trust by introducing an education that requires rulers to blindly trust the educative tales they are told. Next, he teaches about thought through his discussion of the guardians' education and dialectics.
This makes it clear that Socrates was always instructing in his own Socratic method and used the example of the city and the education of the guardians to display his ideal form of
education.