Plato On Education Summary

Plato believes in the necessity of the Noble Lie. In his ideal society, what is taught is determined by the guardians, a select group of people. He justifies this with the thought that when one can control how education is handled in a society, you in hand can control the citizens within your ideal society. He believes that when teaching the history of the gods, there should be an exclusion of the god’s acting human-esque and having human emotions, negative emotions especially. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, believes that a high value must be placed on truth so that citizens will not get the wrong ideas about the gods and emulate the gods’ wrongdoing. He believes that if citizens hear and

Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.

Plato’s Republic focuses majorly on the search to find justice, but also gives a lot of attention to education and how the quality of education dictates how just a person and a society will become. Socrates spends time creating the Kallipolis in order to disprove Thrasymacus’ claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger. However, through the methodology used by Socrates to educate the citizens of the Kallipolis, he supports the claim Thrasymacus makes.

In their work, Plato and Paulo Freire have offered harsh critiques of education and learning. Plato compares people to prisoners in a cave of darkness in relation to knowledge, and Freire refers to a “Banking Concept” of education in which teachers put their thoughts and information into students’ minds much like money is deposited into a bank. Instead of this money being of value, Freire and Plato acknowledge that the value declines. Although many people refute the concept of accepting new knowledge and admission of mistakes, I claim that both Plato and Freire produce valid points about the corruption of education because people cannot learn unless they have an open mind and truly desire to learn. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the effectiveness of learning and continuing the cycle of education.

Opening Statement] In Plato’s The Republic his mentor, Socrates, discusses what the ideal education should include. He claims that “the rearing in music is most sovereign,” and makes an argument to defend his stance (80; bk.3, ln.401, par. d). Education for Socrates is not informative (this is how “education” is mostly viewed in modern times; just filling one’s mind with information), rather, he sees education as a formative tool to shape the soul of an individual. Socrates views music in a much broader sense than what would typically come to mind. “Music” in the Republic refers to both literary education and the conventional song/melody. Socrates’ beliefs on musical education are true because music is formative, music teaches temperance and good morals, and most importantly, he is correct, because the Bible itself teaches the importance of music.

Plato was a philosopher who was born in Athens (470-390 BCE), and was also a student of Socrates. He felt that intelligence and one’s perception belonged to completely independent realms or realities. He believed that general concepts of knowledge were predestined, or placed in the soul before birth even occurred in living things. Plato believed that the cosmos was intelligible, and the the universe was mathematically understandable. He believes that mathematical objects could be seen as perfect forms. Forms, a doctoral of Plato, can be understood as an everyday object or idea, which does not, exists in the everyday realm, but merely is existent in the hypothetical realm or reality.

Plato, in addition to being a philosopher, wrestled at the Olympic level, is one of the classical Greek authors, mathematicians and the founder of The Academy, the first higher learning institute in the west. In short, Plato is one of the great thinkers in history and his contributions to philosophy, ethics and politics are many and varied. One of Plato’s main philosophical ideas is based on the idea that the world

Plato was born into an aristocratic family and later became a disciple of Socrates, eventually witnessing the philosopher 's execution in 399BC, he feared for his safety and went travelling to Italy and Egypt. He returned to Athens after his travels and founded the first European university, the Academy. There, astronomy, biology, mathematics, politics and philosophy were taught, with Aristotle as the most famous student. He also compared the state and the individual, stating they both consisted of three parts: the desiring, the spirited and the rational. If they are all in harmony but ruled by the rational you have justice. He went further to construct many statements that have been quoted throughout history in reference to issues of the times, one being ‘ The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men’

Philosophy is a Greek word meaning "love of wisdom." Throughout Plato's Republic, wisdom plays an important role. According to Plato, education is wisdom. In the passage, 518d, Plato discusses the true meaning of education vicariously through Socrates. Some literary mechanisms can be found in the passage and I will show how they fit in the text and how they contribute to the main themes of Plato's Republic.

This paper discussed The Allegory of The Cave in Plato's Republic, and tries to unfold the messages Plato wishes to convey with regard to his conception of reality, knowledge and education.

However, it is challenging to make a precise distinction which School relates closely to practical life throughout the years. Although the former focuses more on teaching useful skills and rhetoric, it does not seem to provide answers to a lot of questions we ask ourselves from time to time like if there is right and wrong independent of personal perceptions and whether we should distinguish them. At the same time, Plato has greatly influenced our civilization even though he might appear a bit abstract at first sight. The Ideal State is trying to deal with problems we still face nowadays with all types of political regimes, his idea of education is embedded in the universities we attend and his quest for morality and virtue makes us different from the rest of the living world as we as humans are capable of reason. Another major impact is that he also shaped Christianity and made us consider the conflict inside every human between bodily and soul desires. Everything summed up makes me wonder if Plato is really so abstract then, or it is more that once we grasp his ideas they still seem valid and intriguing today. It is astonishing how someone 2 500 years ago could have made contributions to our lives which hold throughout time and remain until

Plato was a philosopher and educator in ancient Greece. He was one of the most important thinkers and writers in the history of Western culture. Plato was born in Athens into a family that was one of the oldest and most distinguished in the city. His father Ariston died when Plato was only a child. The name Plato was a nickname meaning broad shoulders. Plato's real name was Aristocles. Plato had aspirations of becoming a politician, however these hopes were destroyed when his friend Socrates was sentenced to death in 299 B.C. Extremely hurt Plato left Athens and traveled for several years. In 387 B.C., Plato returned to Athens and founded a school of philosophy and science that became known as the Academy. Topics such as astronomy,

Plato contended that all true knowledge is recollection. He stated that we all have innate knowledge that tells us about the things we experience in our world. This knowledge, Plato believed, was gained when the soul resided in the invisible realm, the realm of The Forms and The Good.

The idealistic views of Socrates cannot be clearer than what they are on the most famous of Plato’s books, the Republic. The Republic is said to be the most influential book in western history after the Bible and has four themes to it: Justice

In order to compare these great philosophers, it is important that we first of all view their history from an individual perspective.