Download The Great Philosopher- Educator

Introduction
Any attempt to encapsulate Plato’s thought regarding education is
a daunting task. Plato’s views are many and diverse, and throughout
history innumerable analyses of his thought already have been made.
The attention that has been paid to interpreting Plato, however, is
certainly not undeserved. Plato was one of the principal founders of the
Western intellectual tradition, and it is nearly impossible to examine
the historical development of any academic topic without, knowingly
or unknowingly, addressing Plato’s views. As Alfred North Whitehead
famously quipped, “The safest general characterization of the European
philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to
Plato.”1 Werner Jaeger similarly claims that, “To this day, the character
of any philosophy is determined by the relation it bears to Plato. After
him, every epoch of classical culture was marked by Platonic characteristics, however strangely altered they might be.”2
Plato was one of the principal founders of the
Western intellectual tradition, and it is nearly
impossible to examine the historical development
of any academic topic without, knowingly or
unknowingly, addressing Plato’s views.
Despite this dominant presence, however, Plato’s views on education
are highly contentious. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, describes
1. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, Gifford Lectures Delivered in
the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927–1928 (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 63.
2. Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1939–1944), 2:77.
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