UC San Diego

Understanding Plato's contribution to democratic education means more than understanding the substance of the conversations he depicts: appreciating how his characters shape each other with speech and recognizing how Plato similarly employs his writing to shape readers. Such reshaping is crucial for political education because, as revealed in the Protagoras, the key to the political art is guiding others to harmonize their preferences as individuals with those they hold as citizens. This means uniting their goods as individuals and the goods of the polity with people's collective understanding of what is admirable or beautiful (kalos). A fuller understanding of the polity, and a deeper form of self rule, requires a more complete understanding of how the world comes to be the way it is. Plato offers this possibility to his readers by showing the relationship between understanding knowledge (epistemology) and existence (ontology). People's social interaction influences the way they make sense of the world, playing a crucial role in what they take to be--and what is--real. The conversations Plato depicts with Socrates as well as those he initiates in readers' minds shape reality; Plato himself is a "philosophical poet." Examining these conversations more closely makes it possible to see how the political art is practiced. Socrates begins by understanding how others see the world, questions their assumptions to open them to a new outlook, and engages them in verbal give and take to help develop a new, or reformed, understanding of the world. His interlocutors must argue their own opinions and decide issues in common with him, harmonizing their beliefs. Plato's support for logical reasoning and truth over traditional rhetoric paves the way for a more stable polity. Favoring internal consistency in a polity works against the tyranny of public opinion and makes individuality possible. However, since Descartes, historical changes have transformed truth, threatening a new form of tyranny: preventing people from contributing to the polity's being. Plato supplies a solution within his dialogues, demonstrating how to reshape the world and opening a new space where people may join as fellow citizens, forming a polity in speech (logos)