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Short Paper #2: Education out of Plato’s Apology and Republic

An examination of Plato’s description of Socrates’ life in the Apology and his

discussions regarding education in book IV-VI of the Republic mutually illuminate what is

at stake for Plato in describing philosophy and politics. Both texts read together yield a

depiction of the philosopher as opposed to all existing forms of sociopolitics, insofar as

existing politics are constituted by disordered souls. Similarly, such a reading makes visible

a notion of philosophy as thinking and living according to one’s metaphysical or divine

nature in connection to the opposition of philosophy to the existing order of things. Yet, the

precise nature of this oppositional character of philosophy, how one comes to live into

one’s metaphysical constitution, remains unclear if one does not look to how Plato

describes education. This is the task of the comparison here between the aforementioned

texts.

Proper education turns out to be a gateway for assuming the critical relationship to

the existing order of things. This is evident in the well-known depiction of the philosopher

who comes to realize that the shadows on the cave wall are not ‘the real’ itself in the

Republic. This critical effect of education is a result of education being the inculcation of

harmony in the soul, this proper ordering of the soul appearing in contradistinction to the

disorderliness of the existing order. Education, then, is the production of attention (in the

sense of how one lives and thinks) to one’s metaphysical or divine constitution. This point

is reinforced directly by the texts cited from the Republic, and indirectly (because education

as such is not mentioned as frequently) by the texts cited from the Apology regarding the

care of the soul and the existing politics of Athens. Passages from the latter illumine the

political stakes of the former.

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In book IV of the Republic, the reader encounters a notion of knowledge as justice,

where the two are defined as the harmonious and moderated order of the individual [city]

(443d-e). Book IV of the Republic begins by addressing the seeming injustice accorded to

the guardians in that they cannot own land, possess wealth, etc. (419). Yet, the ideal city,

the city that is here a metaphor for the soul/individual (368e-369a), is not premised upon a

singular part’s happiness, but rather a harmonious whole (420b-c). From this notion of a

collective happiness, the reader encounters the notion of harmonious order wherein each

profession and class operates according to their own capacity (421b-c).

Socrates holds a notion of proper education that corresponds to such an order. He

refers to education as the “one great [or sufficient] thing” (423d) out of the range of orders

already given for how to establish and promote the harmony of the city. Education is

described as that which produces “good natures, and useful natures” (424a-b). This is a

notion of knowing and learning that is not detached from what it means to live, but rather

has to do with how one lives one’s life in the context of other people. The prohibition on

changes to the arts and physical training that would engender thinking and behaviors

contrary to the established order of the ideal city (the soul) are in place because the

corruption of education would rend the city asunder by setting in motion a process of

deficient order, of parts against other parts (425-426a). The ideal city, precisely as a city

premised upon a proper education, is set against such disharmony.

Disharmony, though not in so many words, is attributed to the existing (non-ideal)

political order of Athens in the Apology. Where in the Republic one finds descriptions of

education positively and negatively in the context of the hypothetical and ideal city, here

the reader finds what poor education produces through Socrates’ descriptions of Athens.

Here one has a concrete sense for what happens when education goes wrong. The politics
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of Athens are juxtaposed to goodness and justice (33a). The task of the philosopher is set

against the pretension to wisdom and the desire for power and reputation that characterizes

Athens (29d). The conduct of the Athenian politicians is juxtaposed directly with the

seeking of wisdom and truth as the care of the soul (29e). Being so juxtaposed, politics as

such are further contrasted with the pursuit of justice [and survival] (32a). In the Republic

justice is, again, defined in tandem with knowledge as the harmony of the soul and city.

Thus, read in tandem with the Republic, one can say that the politics of Athens in the

Apology are the politics of disharmonious souls and cities.

Socrates even connects his own vocation of inquiry to the task of exposing poor

soul care by describing how he would do just this for any politician who would object to his

characterization of Athens as disordered (29e-30b). Socrates notes his own worry for and

reproach of the Athenian politicians for their neglect of their soul’s state in killing him

(30c-d). This is a neglect that is evinced in the killing of Socrates and that Socrates predicts

will not spare the Athenians from giving an account for their soul, nor from other men such

as Socrates (39c-d). Finally, Socrates juxtaposes his vocation of inquiry as an activity open

to all to those who are paid for teaching (31b-c). Given the context of the Apology as a

whole, and looking to the Republic, such paid teaching would not be education in the

proper sense. Rather, it would be akin to the kind of education Socrates describes as “the

education of the mob,” the sophistical teaching of “the convictions that the majority

express…what the sophists call wisdom” (492e-493a).

Education then, as the care of the soul, or rather the lack thereof, lies at the heart of

what makes the existing political order so bad in the Apology. This point is made more

thematically clear in the Republic. For those who have “the philosophic nature,” education

names the environment proper to growing that nature’s potential for seeking the good. Yet,
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even such people can go astray if they receive an inappropriate education (491e-492a). The

ordering of the ideal city in the Republic is, then, an image of how appropriate education

can produce said order. It does this more broadly, in the parts of the city that do not receive

the fullness of philosophical education, through law. Law produces the preservation of the

order of the city regardless of individual desires, pains, etc. according to the wisdom of the

lawgivers (429c-d). The lawgivers are, in turn, philosophers who have been educated,

where education entails the cultivation of the part of the philosopher’s soul that orders the

other parts of the soul through its ultimate desire (eros) for the good (490a-b).

Taken together, this reading of the texts illustrates how Plato conceives of education

as a metaphysical as well as political concern. Education is the foundation for the city, for

the soul, as a whole. In the case of the Republic, it is positively the core of the ideal city. In

both the Republic and the Apology, it is negatively the core of the disharmonious city.

Reading through the metaphor of the city in the Republic and looking to Socrates’

admonishment of the Athenian politicians in the Apology, one can say that education is

conceived as that which sets one’s life path, either in opposition to or in collusion with

disharmony, in a given direction in conjunction with one’s uneducated nature. As the

cultivation of the proper ordering of the soul, education is in a sense the most important

aspect of one’s life, and if Socrates’ warnings to the Athenian politicians are taken

seriously, the most important aspect in determining how one will approach death.