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famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may
imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them. Then, again, the
teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is temperate and
gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they
introduce him to the poems of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets;
and these they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite
familiar to the children’s souls, in order that they may learn to be more gentle,
and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for
the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm. Then they send
them to the master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister
to the virtuous mind, and that they may not be compelled through bodily
weakness to play the coward in war or on any other occasion. This is what is
done by those who have the means, and those who have the means are the
rich; their children begin to go to school soonest and leave off latest. When
they have done with masters, the state again compels them to learn the laws,
and live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies;
and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a
style for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes
him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of
good lawgivers living in the olden time; these are given to the young man, in
order to guide him in his conduct whether he is commanding or obeying; and
he who transgresses them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to
account, which is a term used not only in your country, but also in many
others, seeing that justice calls men to account. Now when there is all this
care about virtue private and public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and
doubt whether virtue can be taught? Cease to wonder, for the opposite would
be far more surprising.
But why then do the sons of good fathers often turn out ill? There is
nothing very wonderful in this; for, as I have been saying, the existence of a
state implies that virtue is not any man’s private possession. If so —and
nothing can be truer—then I will further ask you to imagine, as an illustration,
some other pursuit or branch of knowledge which may be assumed equally to
be the condition of the existence of a state. Suppose that there could be no
state unless we were all flute-players, as far as each had the capacity, and
everybody was freely teaching everybody the art, both in private and public,
and reproving the bad player as freely and openly as every man now teaches
justice and the laws, not concealing them as he would conceal the other arts,
but imparting them—for all of us have a mutual interest in the justice and
virtue of one another, and this is the reason why every one is so ready to teach
justice and the laws;—suppose, I say, that there were the same readiness and
liberality among us in teaching one another flute-playing, do you imagine,
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zurĂĽck zum
Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International