Higher Education

Explains the curricula included in the proposed higher education of the future rulers: arithmetic, geometry, stereometry, astronomy, harmony, and dialectic. Once again addresses questions of what Plato thought about mathematical objects and how he talks about these in Book VII of the Republic. Considers debates about just how and why Plato assigned such an important role to mathematical studies in the training of the power of knowledge for the future rulers. Considers the relationship of “formal” as opposed to “empirical” study, particularly in Plato’s requirement of astronomy as the penultimate mathematical study. Discusses what we can discern about Plato’s conception of dialectic and how that fits as the final element in the “highest studies” that prepare the future rulers to begin to engage in political rule. Shows how in spite of these studies culminating in the highest cognitive achievements, they must be followed by fifteen years of political apprenticeship, and why only after this training can Plato’s best students become philosopher rulers.

The Cave

Explains Plato’s famous image of the cave and the prisoners, who Plato claims are “like us.” Given the way the image of the cave is associated with the divided line, this has the effect of having the prisoners’ (and our own) initial educational condition being associated not just with opinion, but with the lowest subsegment of the divided line, associated with imaging. Scholars have found this association either implausible or unintended by Plato, but an argument is given here for how and why Plato would have accepted this association. Reviews the various stages the prisoners go through in this image of education. This chapter also provides a new explanation of what has been called “the happy philosopher problem”: the future rulers’ initial reluctance to return to the cave, in the terms of Plato’s epistemology argued in this book and also in the light of hints Plato provides in the cave image itself.

The Powers of Comprehension

Explains Plato’s analyses of the three cognitive powers: knowledge, opinion, and ignorance. Shows why Plato’s epistemology in the Republic should not be understood in terms of the more familiar notions of propositional or informational knowledge, but rather in terms of exemplar representation, with the only completely reliable exemplars being the forms. Plato’s cognitive powers should not be conceived as cognitive states, but as the powers that produce such states. Moreover, the kinds of states typically studied in contemporary epistemology have content that is either true or false, whereas Plato’s cognitive powers produce something like conceptions of such things as beauty, justice, and goodness, which, instead of being either true or false, may be more or less accurate. These conceptions can then be used in the kinds of judgments we normally think of as the content of cognitions.

The Sun and the Good

Explains and reveals the limitations of the first in the sequence of Plato’s three images of cognition and education: the simile of the sun and the good. Shows how this simile continues Plato’s epistemology of cognitive powers, and also shows how the role of truth in Plato’s epistemology is very different from the way it figures in contemporary epistemology. Introduces Plato’s idea of thinking as a first step in summoning the power of knowledge. Plato has Socrates and Glaucon come to an impasse when Glaucon wishes to hear about what Socrates thinks about what the good is, which they agree should be the highest study of the philosopher-rulers. Socrates balks at this, not wishing to speak of the good as if he knew what it is. But Glaucon presses, insisting that they should at least discuss the good in the ways in which they have already discussed justice and moderation. A middle ground is thus indicated between just comparing opinions on a subject without knowledge, and the sort of knowledge that philosopher-rulers will have, but which Socrates and Glaucon lack. The discussion of the good, then, falls into this middle ground, as do the earlier discussions of justice and moderation.

Images of Justice

Gives a close analysis of two of Plato’s most controversial images: the analogy of the soul and state and the suggestion that the rulers will have to lie to the citizenry, including especially the myth of the metals. These are understood as images of justice (the form), and their limitations as images are revealed. The analogy of the soul and state conceives of each analog as composed of three parts. But the first city Plato has Socrates imagine in the Republic does not have three parts, and then when the arguments for partitioning the soul are given, the principle Socrates offers for finding different parts is misapplied. Alternative formulations of this principle bring other problems, and Plato’s own conclusion of his arguments seems to leave open the possibility that there may be even more parts of the soul than those he has identified. As for Plato’s lying rulers, the apparent problem derives from Plato having a very different conception of truth than the two-valued conception familiar to contemporary philosophers. Plato’s rulers seek to establish the best images of this kind of truth.

Introduction

Distinguishes between Plato’s conceptions of education, knowledge, and truth from those more familiar in contemporary philosophy. Specifically, argues that knowledge is not a species of true belief, for Plato. Plato’s basic conception of truth is different from ours, and thus cannot really be compared to the role of truth in contemporary epistemology. Nor is knowledge any kind of belief, for Plato. Instead of being some kind of propositional attitude, as we think belief is, Plato compares and contrasts different epistemic powers (or capacities). Finally, because knowledge, for Plato, is a natural cognitive power, it is not the sort of thing that can be put into a soul that lacks that natural power. Education, thus, does not instill knowledge into the student, but takes this natural capacity and strengthens and develops it. Provides a precis of the main arguments of the book, and introduces the role of forms as exemplars.

The Divided Line

Explains Plato’s famous (and very controversial) image of the divided line. Also explains why what Plato says about this image is not amenable to consistent interpretation, thus revealing its own limitations as an image. The problem may be seen in the different ways in which Plato has Socrates talk about the relationships between the second-highest subsegment, which he associates with thinking, and the two subsegments just above and below that one. On the one hand, it sees he wants to have the different lengths of the segments and subsegments represent varying degrees of clarity and truth. But he then creates a proportion in which the two middle subsegments are equal in length. When he later (in Book VII) compares thinking with opinion, he declares thinking to be clearer than opinion, and associates opinion with both of the lower subsegments of the line. The proportions given in Book VI, accordingly, cannot be applied to what Plato really thinks about the advantages of thinking over opinion. Describes the different cognitive conditions that result from using cognitive powers on images (thinking and imaging), rather than their originals, producing the four cognitive conditions of understanding, thinking, belief, and imaging. Explains Plato’s discussion of hypotheses.

Some Closing Remarks

Reviews the main arguments of the book, and considers how these reveal how Plato fashions his work in such a way as to summon the power of knowledge in his readers through the use of images that represent—but do not fully express—the highest realities, the forms. But the kind of education Plato provides in the Republic does not and cannot bring the power of knowledge power into its fullest realization. Instead, the Republic aims to generate thinking, but not understanding, in Plato’s terms. Shows how Plato’s theory of education through exemplars and images may also inform contemporary ideas about how role models may be used in moral education.