Plato’s Educational Philosophy: A Critical Analysis
Plato’s Personal Opinion on Education
I will state my personal position with respect to Plato, focusing on a specific topic: education in its ideal state. Subsequently, the author will make an assessment from now.
What is taught in The Republic? Gymnastics, art, mathematics, astronomy, and dialectic. Music is paramount. I was impressed that Plato defended censorship on all matters relating to poetry and myths. It is dangerous for young people to believe that the gods behave in such a way. You can even change the story to have an educational end, to teach young people to incline to virtue, value, and duty towards the Polis.
Plato also thinks, in the same vein, that dialectic is not advisable because it can make young people believe they can defend or attack anything (like sophists). Instead, dialogue should be taught to exceed one’s own point of view and arrive at the truth, as taught by his teacher Socrates. Also, regarding theater, Plato thinks it should publish works of heroic characters.
Ultimately, all these theories about how Plato defends teaching in an ideal country, I think that is deplorable and that the mandatory acceptance of myths and stories are totally incompatible with philosophy. If anything, philosophy should be characterized primarily by its critical sense. To argue that only a few can know all the existing theories because they do not affect the majority of the ignorant, you have to hide the truth. Being too hard in the opposite sense, to me, that so far has been amazing and very advanced for its time, as Plato thinks that women should be educated just like men and that even there may be some who by their very nature serve as soldiers or rulers.
So, I think that his political model is a closed society that puts authoritarian state interests over individuals, and a conservative, reactionary attitude. It is also necessary to remember the impact this utopia had on history. Plato wrote the first great utopia and made some valuable principles which would be taken into account in all that were written in the following centuries: the government of reason, the importance of education, gender equality. It is important to take into account and value the present ideas such as:
- a) The good for man is knowledge, and this should include all education. Our society also gives importance to education, which, as demonstrated in recent decades, has been widespread academic training in the population. It may also be valid the idea that intelligence and love of learning make this world more palatable. There will always be someone like the released prisoner, who awaits another sun.
- b) Reason should govern. We should all govern with reason. This does not mean that some rule and govern and others do not and obey.
- c) The good that is achieved must be carefully maintained.
- d) Although the use of mythological explanations no longer has the same importance today, it can be seen that myth plays an educative and explanatory role. In the myth of the cave, for example, the analogy with our reality and the process of cognition is clear: the rise of the cave is the path of knowledge, which requires strenuous efforts and discipline to move forward. The prisoners are citizens (us), and their carriers are imposing a political vision, in particular, those who do demagoguery. Fire, which projects the images they create reality, arguably represents the media, particularly TV.
Additionally, we can see that the myth teaches that a better life costs effort and that freedom is not the same as a whim or living lightly. In our society, there is a tendency to think how easy and…