![]() ![]() ![]() Not only does Socrates (Plato's mouthpiece in the dialogue) posit two differing visions of education (the first is the education of the warrior guardians and the second is the philosopher-kings' education), but he also provides a more subtle account of education through the pedagogical method he uses with Glaucon and Adeimantus. Plato's beliefs on education, however, are difficult to discern because of the intricacies of the dialogue. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling.Although Plato's Republic is best known for its definitive defense of justice, it also includes an equally powerful defense of philosophical education. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering -every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. “Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. ![]() Surely one would call this a strong proof that no one is just willingly but only under a strong compulsion, believing that it is not a good to him personally since wherever each thinks he will be able to do injustice, he does injustice.” And in doing so he would do just the same as the other both would go the same way. Then if there could be two such rings, and if the just man put one on and the unjust the other, no one, as it would be thought, would be so adamantine as to abide in the practice of justice, no one could endure to hold back from another's goods and not to touch, when it was in his power to take what he would even out of the market without fear, and to go into any house and lie with anyone he wished, and to kill or set free from prison those he might wish, and to do anything else in the world like a very god. After he found this out he managed to be appointed one of the messengers to the king when he got there, he seduced the king's wife, and with her set upon the king, and killed him, and seized the empire. “Noticing that, he made a trail of the ring, to see if it had that power and he found that whenever he turned the collet inside, he was invisible, when he turned it outside, visible. ![]()
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