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Plato’s Education Philosophy

By Mystie April 11, 2020

Any discussion of classical education ought to begin with Plato, the ultimate philosopher
and the first thinker on education theory and philosophy that we have written material
from his own hand. This guide to Plato’s theory of educational philosophy will not be
merely theoretical, but practical for all educators, including homeschool moms. Plato’s
education theory is where our study of classical education should begin.

Ironically, Plato was not as abstract or difficult a writer as modern education theorists
tend to be. We can learn not only from his words, but from his style, how to be educated
and how to educate.

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Who was Plato?

“The philosophical tradition in classical education, however, begins with Plato.” Thus
writes Richard Gamble in The Great Tradition.

Plato – an Athenian – had been a student of Socrates, and made Socrates his primary
mouthpiece in his famous dialogues. Founder of The Academy, where Aristotle would
study under him, Plato was a prolific writer. And, in most of his writings, he brings the
conversation around to education. It appeared to be a topic never far from the top of his
mind, a topic always relevant. His opinions would shape the aims, ideals, and manner of
education in Western civilization forever after.
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Werner Jaeger summarized Plato’s vision of education: “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.”

Whatever effort fails to do this, is effort spent in vain.

A great beginning source to learn more about the life and influence of Plato is David
Deiner’s book, “Plato: The Great Philosopher-Educator,” published by Classical Academic
Press.

The primary source for the following article are the excerpts from Plato’s Republic and
The Laws found in Richard Gamble’s work, “The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on
What It Means to Be an Educated Person.”

The Aims of Education According to Plato

We need to reorient ourselves to words that have different connotations to us than to
Plato if we’re going to wrap our heads around what Plato’s education aims are.

His goal is to create and train philosophers.

Today, that seems like we’re saying his goal was to train useless thinkers, but that has not
been the historic and certainly not the ancient perspective. After all, philosopher means
lover of wisdom, seeker of truth.

Education is the process of showing people how to rightly love, know, and seek truth and
then apply it wisely and virtuously in real life situations. Philosophy, to Plato, necessarily
involves application, applied virtue in all of life. It is not knowledge for knowledge’s sake,
but rather knowledge for rightly ordered living. But, he would say, there is no rightly
ordered living where there is not true knowledge – that is, knowledge of what is true and
good and beautiful.

Philosophical minds, according to Plato, always love knowledge that shows them the
eternal nature of reality, things that don’t change from generation to generation. Those
who “wander in the region of the many and the variable” are not philosophers at all,
regardless of what they claim, according to Plato; and we see hear the beginnings of the
principle of multum non multa: more is not better, but only quality ought to be valued.

A philosopher, indeed, is one who has a taste of every sort of knowledge – the
knowledge is not limited but broad. He is curious to learn and is never satisfied with the
knowledge he’s attained, but always desires to learn more. Yet this is not an idle curiosity
into novelties, but rather stems from a love of the vision of truth.

So we see that multum non multa is not about few subject areas, but rather about the
focus of our attention, the quality of our resources. We should not spend time and
attention on passing fads, on pure speculation, or on worthless things but on timeless
truths and tested beauty. In Plato, we see again and again a contrast between the eternal
and the variable or the fleeting. When choosing, a philosopher chooses the eternal,
every time. You will know a philosopher by his choices.

Scholé Sisters
And so we can see here why the early Church Fathers, the medieval masters, the
reformers,
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applying Plato, for what is the vision of truth but knowledge and love of God?

John of Salisbury, in the twelfth century AD, wrote:

If, indeed, according to Plato, the philosopher is one who

loves God, what else is philosophy if not the love of the
divine?
– John of Salisbury

So, as educators, let us not shrink from nor shirk our role in being philosophers and
training philosophers. This is our life work.

Plato’s Theory of Education

Education consists primarily of ordo amoris, of rightly ordering and training tastes and
loves. Ultimately, as seen above this is cultivating a love of truth. Plato insisted that a love
of truth would crowd out vice, including the desire for pleasure or profit. One who loves
truth will have no tolerance for falsehood, by definition.

The Cave: What Education Is

Probably the most famous and well-known of Plato’s works is his Allegory of the Cave,
found in Book VII of The Republic. If you’ve never read it, get of IG, ask your phone to find
it for you on the internet. It’s not long, and it’s a story that’s been inspiring educators for
millennia.

In the end, Plato explains his point straightforwardly: “Our argument shows that the
power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was
unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of
knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of
becoming into that o being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being and of the
brightest and best of being, or in other words, the good.”

The ability to learn and to know is innate in humans, not a skill we have to teach. Rather
than “putting knowledge in the soul like sight into blind eyes,” teachers are more like
evangelists, pointing people to the light we’ve received. Plato says we stand in need of
conversion before we can perceive the truth, and thus he was more right than he knew.
Eric Voegelin summed up Plato’s vision of education as “the art of periagoge, of turning
around,” that is, of repentance.

Without the willingness to admit fault, admit lack, admit you might be wrong, admit you
don’t know it all, you can’t receive truth. You aren’t even turned toward truth. A humble
turning must be an indispensable part of the learning process.

One of Plato’s applications of his allegory was also to point out the duty of those who
have seen, known, experienced truth. They bear a responsibility not to stay forever
transfixed in realms of light and glory (no perpetual students or ivory towers here), but
rather to return to the cave and attempt to free others, though he will often be rejected
and scorned. Though he would be personally happier to remain in pure contemplation,
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his love of truth is required in active service in his community for the society to be
happier.

So, again, we see that philosophy is never meant to remain in our minds, but to come out
in active service and application in our real world responsibilities.

Plato believed women should be educated

The question of whether or not women should be educated, or what type of education
women should receive, is not a modern one, but a timeless one. It is a question about
humanity. What is a woman? If she is human, she, too, ought to be educated. Plato’s
education plan includes women:

Women ought to share as far as possible in education

and in other ways with men.
– Plato

He says that if we are educating for happiness and for political stability, then we ought
not leave out half the population. If we say education is for human happiness and then
don’t educate women, we are saying that women are a different order of being. Plato
says there’s no reason not to seek a fully blessed, fully educated society, a society with
educated women as well as men.

My law would apply to females as well as males; they

shall both go through the same exercises.
– Plato

He claims this because education, in his mind, is not about production. It is not about
training for occupations. It is about developing human abilities and happiness more
broadly. Plato fully acknowledges that women have a different role in society than men,
but establishes that their role requires no less education. Women are, he says, “hard at
work weaving the web of life, which will be no cheap or mean employment.”

Plato wanted compulsory education

Plato did not believe that education was for the few, but for all free citizens. Of course,
his view excludes barbarians and slaves, yet his view is more expansive for his time than
many before or after him.

He believed that because education benefits all society and is necessary for stable,
virtuous government, then the government ought to pay for and manage education.

The children shall come not only if their parents please,

but if they do not please; there shall be compulsory
education, as the saying is, of all and sundry, as far as is
possible.
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Early Childhood Education in Plato’s Philosophy

So often it is the mothers of three-year-olds, maybe five-year-olds, who are most
concerned with educational principles and theories and practices. Plato would
encourage us in those concerns, not pat us on the head and poo-poo our earnest desire
to do right by our children from the very beginning.

However, what he would have us do is counter-cultural in our current world of early

academics and “head start” programs. What will best set the stage for a complete
education is well-directed play, Plato taught.

Preschool: “Right training in the nursery”

The most important part of education is right training in

the nursery. -Plato
When we think about educational philosophies, theories, and curriculums, we must not
forget the basis, the foundation.

Any education – whether the intent is to homeschool or not – begins with a toddler
learning to come when called, pick up his toys, and obey his mom and dad. Everything
that comes after is built on that first practice at submitting to authority and exercising
self-control.

No matter what educational methods or settings you choose, this very early beginning is
essential and cannot be neglected.

Children’s games & traditions

Plato’s education plans began with small children because that is when tastes and habits
are formed, not because that is when they need to begin formal academic studies.

Anyone who would be good at anything must practice

that thing from his youth upward. -Plato
Scholé Sisters What would school look like for a 3, 5, 7 year old, according to Plato? It would look like
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playing: “The teacher should endeavor to direct the children’s inclinations and pleasures
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by the help of amusements, to their final aim in life.” Play is formative. Play matters. Play
and home life forms tastes, desires, expectations, and standards.

“The soul of the child in his play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in
which when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected.” Play isn’t irrelevant.
What will our children need to know, need to love, as adults? Let their relationship with
those things begin pleasantly in childhood.

Academics begun early do not help anyone reach the aim of education more surely or
more quickly. However, right training and right affections and right amusements built up
in early childhood will pay off.

What children need to learn, according to Plato

Plato summarizes the responsibility of parents and tutor in training children like this:

We must learn to obey. This begins with obeying parents and teachers, but extends as
adults who know how to obey the law, obey God, obey their conscience, obey those in
authority over them.

We must also learn to rule. This begins by learning to rule ourselves, which is self-
control. Then is extends to learning how to govern those under our care justly and
lovingly.

One who rules without obeying is a tyrant, one who obeys without ruling is a slave.

And both truly all begins when young children learn to obey, because that requires the
beginnings of learning self-control.

Related: Dear homeschool mom who wants to

give her 5-year-old a classical education

Plato’s Curriculum
How should we divide subjects? Plato: “Education has two branches – one of gymnastic,
Scholé Sisters which is concerned with the body, and the other of music, which is designed for the
improvement
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Have you ever considered your whole day as one of studying music, with brief interludes
of bodily training? Music – those things of the muses – includes the major branches of
knowledge. Plato doesn’t divide them, but unite them, as one study meant to feed and
develop the soul.

A worthy soul ought to have a worthy, controlled, agile body as well, so gymnastic is a
necessary part of education, not an extracurricular. Of exercise, Plato writes: “working
with energy and constancy, with composed strength, and for the sake of health – these
are always useful, and are not to be neglected, but to be enjoined alike on masters and
scholars.”

What gymnastic to you enjoin on yourself and on your students? Plato reminds that it
“aims at preserving dignity and freedom” and “producing health, agility, and beauty.”

How are your musical studies going? Not the study of music per se, but all your studies
as studies that are done for the soul’s improvement.

Plato on Life-long Learning

We don’t have to teach out of our own sufficiency and our own mastering of the subject.

Contrary to what many classical school marketing materials will tell you, we don’t have to
be a master before we begin to teach. However, according to Plato, we do have to be
willing to outlay both our time and money to pursue education for ourselves if we want
our children to be educated. We also can’t teach from complacency.

But I cannot advise that we remain as we are.

Plato

Notice how Plato here includes even himself in this advise. He sets the example. He
continually pursues education, growth in wisdom and knowledge, whether others regard
him as a master or not.

Every one of us should seek out the best teacher whom

he can find, first for ourselves, who are greatly in need of
one, and then for the youth, regardless of expense or
anything.
Plato

Plato is speaking to teachers but also to his general audience. None of us should remain
as we are, but instead seek out teachers. We should seek out teachers for ourselves
before we seek them for our children.

Mothers, homeschooling or not, must be both teachers and learners.

As mothers home with our children, we are their primary influence, especially in the
younger years. We can’t just wing it and expect great results or satisfaction.
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If we can be always learning, always growing, always stretching, we will be happier and
we will be modeling for our children the life we’re asking them to embrace.

Scholé Sisters Podcast Episodes on Plato

Episode 52: How to study philosophy – and love it!

Episode 69: A chat on Socratiic Discussion based on Plato’s Gorgias

Scholé is the opposite of stress.

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