7.3: The Craft of Education

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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?