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Republic
2 (375a-383d)
Education
of the Guardians I
Contents:
The Education of the Guardians (375a-376d)
- We have seen that in order to provide
for the protection and expansion of the luxurious city, it is
necessary to have an army of guardians who will also serve as the
rulers of the the city.
- A problem arises when Socrates
considers the danger that military rule could easily lead to the
establishment of dictatorship.
- The solution he maintains will be to
educate the guardians in such a way that they are:
- gentle towards their own citizens
- and fierce towards their enemies
In 375a an analogy is made between the
guardians and pedigree puppies. In Plato's mind, just as a
"noble puppy" can be trained to be both fierce (towards
strangers) and gentle (those those it knows), so too can his guardians.
- Plato's understanding of education is
somewhat different than our contemporary understanding:
- it involves the total training of
character and aims at producing a morally mature individual.
It is, in other words, fundamentally moral in nature.
- it strives to connect ethics with
aesthetics. Its goal is to produce people who are
attracted to the good and repulsed by evil.
- it attempts to combines the proper
balance of both intellectual and physical training.
The over-emphasis on physical training would produce a brute, the
over-emphasis on the intellectual, a wimp.
- his educational system is basically authoritarian.
The guardians are not encouraged to question their beliefs; that
kind of questioning is left to a small elite who are
philosophically trained. In general, Plato places little
value upon individualism and independent thought (Annas
82-94)
Censorship of Poetry (376d-383c)
- Socrates describes the two aspects of
the guardian's education: music (mousike) for the
soul and gymnastics (gymnastike) for the body. White
maintains that these terms are somewhat misleading and that
"training in the arts" and "physical training"
comes closer to the meaning that Plato has in mind (White 91). Pappas
elaborates further, writing, "'Music (mousike) means all the
activities sponsored by the Muses: poetry of every stripe, dance,
astronomy history —roughly
what we call in English 'the liberal arts.'" (Pappas 65).
The bulk of Plato's discussion in Books 2 and 3 concerns the
specific types of poetry (i.e., stories) to which the young guardians
will be exposed.
- The poetry that Plato refers to is
not exactly what we usually have in mind by poetry. Poetry
in ancient Greece made up an important part of a child's
education, and was recited, not read silently. The focus was
mainly on the poetry of Homer—the
Iliad and the Odyssey.
- This is extremely important, since a
young child's character can easily be affected by exposure to
vicious or illicit stories. Think for example about the
negative effects of certain types of television programs, music or
films on children in our own times, and you will understand why
Plato is so concerned about this issue.
- Since education for Plato involves
the training of one's entire character, and since certain types of
poetry/stories can produce a negative impact on the child's
character, it will not be surprising that Plato advocates the
censorship of certain types of poems/stories (377b)
- Plato first argues that all false
poetry should be censored
- This category would include all
stories about gods and heroes which make a "bad
representation." of them (377e)
- Since the gods are good, those
stories which portray them performing indecent or immoral acts
must by implication be false. Likewise heroes
certainly can't be weak or undignified, so Plato will have them
portrayed only in a properly heroic light.
- Plato does not hesitate to attack
the sacred figures of Greek literature. Homer's Iliad,
for example, would have been considered a great work even in
Plato's own time. Because the gods are portrayed in Homer's
work as petty, vain and vengeful and heroes as savage and
deceitful, Homer's mistakes must be corrected. What Plato's
guardians would be left with is a greatly sanitized version of
Homer.
- Plato's next move is to argue for the
censorship of all immoral poetry (378a)
- stories portraying vice of any kind,
even if true, must be censored. Children must not be
exposed, for example, to stories of happy tyrants, since they will
eventually want to imitate these vices.
- Plato, as we shall see, has no
problem with the rulers of his city lying to its citizens for
their own good. What he is most concerned about is ensuring
that the guardians grow up free of vicious influences. If
that means manipulating the truth of certain tales, so be it.
Conclusion:
The Adventure Continues...
- The division of books 2 and 3 at this
point is a bit arbitrary. The discussion of poetry will continue
into the next book. Book 3 will also go into greater details
about the lives of the guardians.
Suggestions for Further Reading
- Annas, Julia. An Introduction to
Plato's Republic. New York: Oxford, 1981 [58-94]
- Bloom, Allan. The Republic of
Plato. New York: Harper Collins, 1968. [337-351]
- Irwin, Terence. Plato's Ethics.
New York: Oxford UP, 1995. [181-202]
- Kirwin, C. "Glaucon's
Challenge," Phronesis 10 (1965): 162-173.
- Pappas, Nickolas. Plato
and the Republic. New York: Routlege, 1995.
[51-70]
- Rice, Daryl H. A Guide to
Plato's Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
[35-52]
- Taylor, A.E. Plato: The Man and
His Work. Cleveland: Meridian, 1964. [270-273]
- White, Nicholas P. A
Companion to Plato's Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979.
[74-94]
Department
of Philosophy | Sophia
Project | Plato
Page
© 2000, M. Russo
For more information contact: mrusso@molloy.edu
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