UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Democratic Education in the Works of Plato Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2df2t49r Author Barrett, Richard A. Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Democratic Education in the Works of Plato A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Richard A. Barrett Committee in charge: Professor Tracy B. Strong, Chair Professor Page duBois Professor Fonna Forman Professor Marcel Hénaff Professor Gerry Mackie 2014 Copyright Richard A. Barrett, 2014 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Richard A. Barrett is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Chair UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 2014 iii DEDICATION To those who have shared conversations about our world with me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………...…iii Dedication……………………………………………………………………………..iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………....v Vita…………………………………………………………………………………....vii Abstract of the Dissertation.………………………………………………………....viii Introduction: Plato and the Problem of Democratic Education ..................................... 1 Chapter 1 Reading Plato: Plato and Xenophon as Teachers and Poets ............. 7 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 7 1.2 Comparison of Apologies ................................................................................ 8 1.3 Plato on the Relationship of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Poetry to Education 13 1.3.1 The Art (technē) of the Poet and Rhapsode ............................................ 13 1.3.2 The art that is not really an art – Poetry and Rhetoric as a Knack ......... 18 1.3.3 Philosophy as the True Art of Rhetoric .................................................. 20 1.4 True Rhetoric Immortalized: Plato and Xenophon's Writing on Writing ..... 22 1.4.1 Xenophon: Writing that Changes the Reader ........................................ 23 1.4.2 Plato on Writing ..................................................................................... 28 1.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 2 Pluralism, Politics, and Beauty: Harmonizing Conflict through Orientation toward To Kalon in Plato's Protagoras ........................ 41 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 41 2.2 The Relationship between the Good and the Kalon ...................................... 45 2.2.1 Socrates Rebuking Protagoras from Beneath a Cloak ............................ 46 2.3 Political Education and the Kalon ................................................................. 53 2.3.1 Preferring the Kalon ............................................................................... 56 2.3.2 Leading Others to Prefer the Kalon ........................................................ 70 2.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 3 Plato as ―Poetical Philosopher‖: Being, Conversation, and the Political Art ..................................................................................... 82 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 82 3.2 Allen's Plato as ―Poetical Philosopher‖ ......................................................... 84 3.3 Images, Truth, and Platonic Understanding of Being .................................... 86 3.3.1 Knowledge, Truth, and Being in the Republic and Meno ...................... 90 3.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 155 Chapter 4 Political Education: The Shaping of Polities in Conversation ..... 159 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 159 4.2 The Being of People and the Being of Polities ............................................ 159 v 4.2.1 Regime Change .................................................................................... 163 4.2.2 Guiding Political Change ..................................................................... 164 4.3 Plato Demonstrating the Political Art .......................................................... 166 4.3.1 The Manner of Education ..................................................................... 166 4.3.2 The Shared Quest for Understanding: Creating Being with Others .... 167 4.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 209 Chapter 5 Plato, Democracy, and Education: Human Being and Citizen .... 211 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 211 5.2 Plato and Democracy ................................................................................... 212 5.2.1 Scholarship on Plato's Relationship with Democracy .......................... 212 5.2.2 Plato's Republic as a Misleading Source of Plato on Democracy ........ 216 5.3 Plato's Account of the Goods Brought Forth by Polities ............................. 220 5.3.1 The Examined Life as a Means of Revealing Oneself ......................... 223 5.3.2 E Pluribus Unum: the Kalon and the Political Good of Harmony ...... 225 5.4 Tyranny, Harmony, and Being .................................................................... 231 5.4.1 Tyranny and Law .................................................................................. 231 5.4.2 Tyranny's Negative Effects................................................................... 235 5.4.3 Logic and Rule of Law to Oppose Opinion (Doxa) and Tyranny ........ 238 5.5 The Goods of Polities and Democracy ........................................................ 245 5.6 The Tyranny of Truth .................................................................................. 248 5.6.1 The Pre-Modern Conception of Truth .................................................. 248 5.6.2 The Shift to Modern Truth ................................................................... 249 5.6.3 The Altered Meaning of Truth and Consequent Alienation ................. 251 5.6.4 Taking Back the Polity as a Place to Reveal Oneself ........................... 259 5.6.5 Plato's Dialogues as Political Space ..................................................... 265 5.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 267 Bibliography ……. ..................................................................................................... 270 vi VITA Bachelor of Arts, University of Chicago — 1996 Juris Doctor, Yale Law School — 2002 Master of Arts, University of California, San Diego— 2008 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego — 2014 vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Democratic Education in the Works of Plato by Richard A. Barrett Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, San Diego, 2014 Professor Tracy B. Strong, Chair 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 viii 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,