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Western Political Thought

Notes was to do good, and like his master, emphasized the need to cultivate one’s soul. Impressed by the
results of state-controlled education in Sparta, Plato duplicated the same for Athens. An important
deficiency in the Athenian curriculum was the lack of training in martial arts that would prepare the
individual from childhood to the service of the interests of the state. Besides, education in Athens,
unlike Sparta, was left to the family and private schools and for this neglect, Athens paid a price as
she allowed rule by the ignorant and inefficient statesmen. Plato attempted to balance the two
contrasting models. The education system drew from Athens values of creativity, excellence and
individual achievement, which it tried to integrate with that of Sparta, namely civic training.
From Athens came the individual aspect which Plato hoped to integrate with the social side that
he borrowed from Sparta. This is because Plato believed that human beings must be inculcated not
only with knowledge but also civic sense:
Plato’s plan of training represents therefore an Athenian, not a Spartan, conception of
what constitutes an educated man. Any other conclusion would have been unthinkable
for a philosopher who believed that the only salvation for states lay in the exercise of
trained intelligence.
For Plato, the human soul was capable of learning as long as it lived, hence education would be a
lifelong process. Knowledge was to be acquired for the sake of perfection and excellence. Its goal
was to turn the “inward eye” with the help of “right objects towards light”. For Plato, the mind
was active, capable of directing itself towards objects of study, and if nurtured properly, it was
capable of becoming totally receptive to objects from the environment. Plato moulded and
established the right environment to ensure that the soul got attracted to things that were beautiful,
and then moved towards beauty itself. Thus, while he was a craftsman of individual souls, he was
equally attentive to crafting the environment in which the soul grew and developed:
Platonic education is primarily a moulding of souls ... . Plato holds that the virtue of
anything, including the soul, “is a matter of regular and orderly arrangement”. It is
the function of education to produce such order, which is a necessary condition for the
virtue based on correct opinion and a necessary precondition for the virtue based on
knowledge. Whereas Socrates, who views the soul as basically rational, sees education
as a wakening of thought, Plato believes education to be concerned as much with the
non-rational elements as with the rational (Klosko 1986: 118).
Right and proper education could be achieved under the tutelage of an able teacher who stimulated
and encouraged thought to bring out the best in the pupil. In his scheme of education, Plato
integrated the Pythagorean idea of the immortality and transmigration of souls with a lifelong
plan of education. He believed that the human soul was a repository of human knowledge acquired
through previous births, with the capacity to remember.
These reminiscences were like flashes that occurred in a mind stirred by the objects that were
placed before it.
Plato’s elaborate system of education brought forth the crucial importance and interdependence of
nature and nurture in shaping human character. He accepted that individuals differed in intelligence
and capacities, which were determined at the time of birth. They were permanent, but within their
limits, individuals could be moulded. The way an individual led a life, whether happily or
unhappily, was determined by upbringing. Talent and training were both required to bring out
the best in an individual. For centuries, scholars remained divided on the issue whether nature or
nurture played the determining role in shaping human beings. Many stressed that individuals
were born with a basic nature which remained unchanged throughout life. On the other hand,
many held that given the right training and environment, individuals transcended the disadvantages
of their birth. In recent years, scholars have reiterated Plato’s belief that nature and nurture
exerted equal influences on the development of a human being:

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