The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

63 The Craft of Education
See 518b-519b. Education, Socrates tells us, is not a matter of putting sight into
blind eyes. The soul is not blind; it is just that “the instrument with which each of
us learns,” the rational part of the soul, is usually misdirected. It needs to be
“turned around.” The trouble is that the appetitive pleasures we experience in our
youth forge in us bonds of “kinship with becoming.” The appetitive part, in other
words, grows disproportionately strong, and the soul develops an excessive
concern for the ever-changing particular things of the world (for “becoming,” as
opposed to the unchanging “being” of the forms). The rational part is still present
in the soul, and active, and capable of turning ultimately to the form of the good;
but, as if with “leaden weights,” its vision is pulled downwards, and it is reduced
to cleverness in the service of the appetitive part. (This is a particularly dangerous
condition when the rational part is naturally strong and the appetitive part has been
seduced by one or more of the darker, addictive desires to which the soul is
subject. More on this in Book IX.) The proper goal of education, as Socrates
understands it, is to free the soul from an excessively narrow focus on transient
particulars, and to turn it “to look at true things.”
What is it to show a person something?
Can a person be shown forms?
Is there anything other than forms that could help tease a person into
appreciating forms? (Conversations perhaps? Puzzles? Works of art?)
How might a person come to be convinced that they would benefit from
seeking knowledge of the forms?
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