A Study On The Civic Education Of Plato’s Politeia

Plato’s thought occupies an irreplaceable position in the ancient Western philosophy tradition,in all of his writings, Politeia is the most representative one. In the dialogue of Politeia, Socrates and the interlocutors co-found an ideal polis and prob the issue of education on people in the polis. Through the words of Socrates, Plato establishes a systematic and structured education system, which includes civic education and elite education in two parts. Civic education includes aspects of music education, physical education and poetry education. In addition to describing the connotation of civic education, Plato’s Socrates also makes some institutional constructs, which are Phoenician legend and communism indeed.On the civic education, Plato’s Socrates makes a detailed screening and selection. Myths, poetries, rhythms, melodies,even sports and medical treatments are reviewed one by one, all of the contents which are unfavorable to civic education are deleted. In this way, people in the polis would live in a environment filled with beauty and receive education without evil. From the content, civic education is actually "beauty education" in a sense, on one hand, such "beauty education" can standardize the order and strengthen the stability of the city; on the other hand, its role is to train citizens to form their virtues. Civic education in Politeia is not just political ideology, to a greater extent, it is designed to shape citizen.System design associated with education is also a part of the thought. Legend of Phoenician were first proposed in this part. The legend has been called "noble lie",it is treated as drug for civic education to cope with potential threats, which is to prevent the guardians from being uncontrolled and chaotic among the grades in the polis. "Noble lie" is not just a statecraft, but a myth that a good society can ground on. However, Phoenician legends would not solve the potential threats of civic education, therefore, Plato’s Socrates proposed the idea of communism. The producer class still retains property and privacy in communism while the ruling class doesn’t, private interests of the guardians and the interests of the polis are highly consistent, they are completely dedicated to the polis. However, the problem, in a certain aspect, still exists even though carrying out the system of communist.Civic education of Politeia aims to build people’s internal political system by cultivating virtues. The key lies in the harmony in soul and the whole polis, and both of them can be promoted each other in civic education, precisely, the ultimate goal of civic education is to achieve the soul harmony and state harmony.