Comments on Matthew Arnold’s "Philistinism in England and America"
	In his essay, "Philistinism in England and America," Matthew Arnold examines the ancient ideas of Plato in the context of a twentieth century, capitalist society. As he agrees with almost all of what Plato had to say, he also admits that he is outdated, and that some of his teachings cannot be applied to us, living in an industrial superpower such as the United States. Still, though, Arnold defends the ancient philosopher. Education as a route to mental and physical righteousness is always a good idea, whether it is in modern America or Ancient Greece. I disagree with this, and it is here that I must contest the writings of Plato, as well as the essay by Arnold, for he is definitely a strong backer of the ancient ideals.
	In Plato’s mind, the value of an education is to clear one’s mind of impure thought, bring it to a higher lever than at the start, and attain a certain level of righteousness. This may have been a good idea 2300 years ago, but today, I see it as very limiting and impractical. In his time, only the rich aristocrats went to school. It’s purpose was not for the students to learn skills or ideas that would help them later in life, but to expand their minds, thus making them into ‘better people.’ There was no need for them to learn any job skills. Back then, if you came from a rich family, you were rich. Working at simple jobs was for the peasants and slaves. Today, life is different. Our society is completely unlike that of the ancient Greeks. We have no caste system limiting the wealth and prominence of any citizen, we have no slavery to handle all the manual labor, our army is proportionately smaller and much less honored, and religion is a part of one’s private life, not a dominating public force as it was to the Ancient Greeks. Most people today have a regular, day to day job, whether it be in an office, store, factory, or anywhere else. We have to earn our wealth by working, not inheritance. That is why most people go to school today.
	I am attending NYU so that I can get a job later in life. I study chemistry and engineering, in the hopes that I can become a chemical engineer.
...r guardians of the nation need to be among other things well educated and almost isolated from civilian life in order to better rule the nation. Plato also implies that women can be as wise as men if they receive the same education and can even become a guardian if they display the proper traits. This goes to show that some Greeks believed that with education and willpower anyone could rise up in the social hierarchy.
...blic, Plato goes on to recognize education as one of the most vital features of a well-run state. He understood the importance of having intellectual, sensible beings running a successful state. Our rational is what directs us towards logical decisions in your life, as well as maintaining us a distance away from corruption. Though Plato is completely correct in recognizing the importance of knowledge in state, I can’t fully agree with his belief that only intellectual individuals are ever capable of fully comprehending the Forms of justice and good. What he wanted was an “intellectual oligarchy” and even though oligarchies may prove effective in the transformations of a state, there is also a huge fault within such system. That flaw being that only the privileged few have a say, where more often than not, the needs and wants of the common people are not thought of.
For Plato, education was more fundamental than tradition or literature or civilization or culture, for education determined how all the others were to be acquired, appreciated, and criticized. Indeed, education and philosophy were, as they are now, intimately linked. The practice of philosophy in Plato's time as in ours, the business of philosophy, was teaching far more than it was system-building. In fact, if Plato was the author of a system of philosophy, by which we are to understand a coherent set of interrelated axioms and their mutual implications, then Plato was a profoundly unsuccessful philosopher. For Plato makes such a variety of different and incompatible statements about so many topics that more than two thousand years of scholarship has thus far failed to produce anything like the consensus about his so-called system that one finds among Aristotelians, for example, or even Marxists.
Antisthenes of Athens (445-360 B.C.) is remembered for being one of Socrates' older pupils. (1) In fact, he was old enough to have first studied under the sophists, before he met Socrates. (2) He thus stands straddling three important periods in the history of Greek philosophy. As a 5th century philosopher, he copied the rhetoric of Gorgias in his famous Ajax and Odysseus speeches and like the sophists, believed that virtue was teachable; surviving into the 4th century, he was taken seriously by Plato and Aristotle, composing essays in which he propounded an individual logical theory of his own; (3) and as precursor of Hellenistic Cynicism, he composed dialogues, teaching new ethical and social norms that resurfaced after his death in the teaching of Diogenes of Sinope and the Stoa. (4) In this paper, I would like to examine some aspects of Antisthenes' educational theory and his concept of paideia.
Plato is recognized as one of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece. He is known as a profound thinker who came from an aristocratic family. Plato was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writing questioned justice, equality, and philosophy. Plato founded the Academy in Athens. This was one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world. Two significant events played a major role in Plato’s life. The first event was meeting the Greek philosopher Socrates who later became his teacher. Socrates 's methods of dialogue and debate fascinated Plato. The second significant event was the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, in which Plato was a part of for a short period of time. Plato
The irrational concept of the education has been influenced moral principles concerning what is good for a society as well as for an individual; however, the understanding of the intrinsic nature of the education removes the darkness of beliefs, which Plato calls prisoners’ shadows in his writing The Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates. Although “The Plato’s Allegory of the Cave” was written thousands of years ago, Plato’s depiction of the true education is a wakeup call for our humanity to admit the acquisition of knowledge with circumspection. The truth often relies on a mistaking understanding of sight or shadow according to Plato; the truth regularly relies on prejudice which makes an individual a prisoner, and the discovery of new truth often encounters hostility. A close analysis of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave allows us to view the education as not a way to transfer knowledge, but a way to transform
From the start of his society, Plato holds one idea to be truth, that all man through training, can be formed into the perfect humans. Plato believed that if he starts his society from children, that he would be able to train anyone through myths and education to become the type of person he wants them to be. Therefore, a man such as Daniel could never exist in his society, his educational system would never allow it. This is one major flaw in Plato’s argument. Plato believes that when humans are born, there is nothing to them, no preexisting personality or being inside every child. Each person from birth, is a blank slate, whose experiences and decisions make into the person that they end up being. While the way a person is raised does have an enormous impact on the life they lead, personality and traits they ar...
Starting in book 2 from 376d and on into book 3 of The Republic, Socrates and Adeimantus discuss the type of education the young guardians, the future rulers and protectors of the city should receive. They feel that the young men should be strong, quick, courageous and educated. They agree that they should receive a physical education for their bodies and an education in music and poetry for their souls. Unlike physical training, an education in music and poetry can begin at a very young age, at the age when most young people are very impressionable. Socrates feels that “the young are incapable of judging what is allegory and what is not, and the opinions they form at that age tend to be ineradicable and unchangeable.”(378d) Socrates feels that it is of the highest importance that the first stories young men should hear are improving stories, ones which contribute to the betterment of the individual’s mind and soul. The stories should give an idea of how they should live their lives and the types of values they should acquire. They should communicate values like fairness in their dealing with others and respect for the family and the community. The unifying principle behind Socrates’ censorship is this: anything that would contribute to the corruption of the minds of young children or that would give them false values, whether it be true or false, should be censored.
First, of all my academic goal is to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering. Majoring in Chemical Engineering combines my passions for science and problem solving, while helping others.
Plato’s idea for a perfect government is to have three different classes to have different roles to help the society. The first group of people is the Producing class and they are responsible for providing materials and food for the city. This is where the farmers, blacksmiths, the fishermen, and other jobs like them. The second group is the Auxiliaries and they are the ones who job is to protect the city from threats, so the soldiers. The final group is the guardians, these are the philosophers and it is there job to not only be knowledgeable but to be just. Plato believes that there are several things that can derail the advancement of society. “Then nothing insane and nothing akin to dissoluteness can be involved in the right of love…Then sexual pleasure must not be involved” (121). Plato believed that sex should only be reserved for special festivals and for creating life, other than that people should keep in line with how a father and son touch each other. Plato did not just regulate what two people did in the privacy in the own home, but he also regulated what people should be learning in school. “At any rate, it ought to end where it has ended; for surely training in the musical crafts ought to end in a passion for beauty” ...
Plato’s view of division of labour is divided into three types of peoples’ task in life which are workers as farmers, military type and guardians. Actually, the ruling task of Plato’s Republic is the guardian’s responsible who had achieved the greatest wisdom or knowledge of good. Due to that, Plato claims that “philosopher must become kings or those now who called kings must genuinely and adequately philosophise’’ (Nussbaum1998, p.18). However, people argue about the reasons that the philosopher should rule the city, while the philosophers prefer to gain knowledge instead of power, thus they don’t seek this authority. Therefore, the argument should alter to why the philosophers are the best ruler to govern people. Indeed, Plato states much evidence to prove his view. Firstly, these kinds of kings are interested in simple life and helping people for better communication. Secondly, as Plato points out that each type of workers has a deficiency and conflict in his erotic attachments such as a worker is a lover of money, but the philosopher is a devotee of wisdom and knowledge. Thirdly, their disapproving of being a king comes from their fear of being unjust (Nussbaum, 1998).Not only these evidence does Plato claim, but he also adds the characteristics of being a king and the education system of philosophy.
Plato thought education at all levels should be the state’s responsibility. His reasoning was that the individual
In the story of "Allegory of the Cave", Plato illustrates his concerning on humanity and education. By the meaning of "Allegory of the Cave", we understand the effect of education on us. Most of the people ignore the importance of teaching, and they seek to learn the knowledge of the book or other materials. Therefore, they don 't care the truth or ignore it, which leads the truth far from us. "Indeed, the very principle that education ought to be more concerned with drawing out various human potentials than with only depositing information into students owes its origin to Plato" (Burch 7). To improve people 's educational level, we should realize that what
Pedagogy is defined as a style of teaching, and in Plato’s pedagogy, there is much to be examined. Cooper states the following of Plato’s pedagogy, “Though Plato never wrote a dialogue that explicitly asks, ‘What is education?’ few argue that he is uninterested in the subject; after all, Plato, like Socrates, was a teacher. In his magnum opus, the Republic, Plato deals with education repeatedly. The education of the guardian class and the allegory of the cave present two landmark pedagogical passages.” In the Republic, Socrates and Plato, for the sake of this essay interchangeable, both teach on education in a way that enlightens the listeners and causes