Let’s say that a good education aims at three things for its students: useful skills, virtue, and the capacity to be at leisure. One finds these aims expressed in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and they have remained central to the history of liberal arts education. The first two goals are plain enough: it’s difficult to imagine a good education that doesn’t educate students to acquire some useful and practical skills or to be morally and intellectually virtuous. Even though educators disagree about which skills are most useful and which virtues should be the focus of their educational endeavors, they agree that we ought to educate for useful skills and virtue. The last goal—the capacity to be at leisure—is less obvious than the first two because it requires a distinction between things we do for their own sake and things we do for the sake of something else. We do not engage in the activity of money-making for its own sake because money is valuable only for what it can provide—it has no value in itself. It’s only the activities that are done for their own sake that have value in themselves and are thus appropriate to one’s leisure.

The three aims of education are not the same as the qualities a prospective student needs to have in order to accomplish these aims. In Plato’s Republic, for example, Socrates and his friends list the following prerequisites: (1) a love of knowledge of everything that is not subject to coming-in-to-being and passing-away, (2) a love of truth and a hatred of falsehood, (3) a concern for the pleasures of the soul rather than the pleasures of the body, (4) not being a lover of money, (5) not given to petty speech or boasting, (6) courage, manifested especially by a disregard for death, (7) being just and gentle rather than difficult-to-partner-with and savage, (8) learning easily, (9) a good memory, (10) musicality and gracefulness, and (11) moderation and charm (Republic 485–486). Unlike the aims of education, this list does not state the goals of a good education but the prerequisites a prospective student must meet in order to benefit from being given a good education. (Notice that this is not a complete list of virtues.) Now, some of the things on Socrates’ lengthy list can be affected by one’s upbringing and can, in a way, be taught to someone before he or she embarks on the voyage of education proper. But many of them are matters of nature, personality, and disposition that are more-or-less out of anyone’s control, and unless a prospective student possesses them, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to attain the goals of a Platonic education.

The Republic presents these prerequisites as necessary because in that work the third aim of education is conceived in a specific way: to spend one’s leisure time well—that is, to be genuinely happy—one must be capable of contemplating the true objects of knowledge, what later came to be known as the Platonic forms. If the highest aim of education is to contemplate the forms, then it makes sense to say that students who embark on a Platonic education must love knowing anything that is not subject to coming-in-to-being and passing-away, or that their concern for pleasures must center on the soul rather than the body.

Later philosophers of education have expressed different ideas about what it means to spend one’s leisure time well. Aristotle, for example, admitted not one but two forms of leisure activity, namely, the practice of philosophy and the enjoyment of music. The former he shares in common with Plato and emphasizes in his Nicomachean Ethics, but the latter departs from Plato’s Republic and is emphasized in Aristotle’s Politics, where he writes, “Odysseus says that the best leisured pastime is when men are enjoying good cheer and ‘the banqueters seated in due order throughout the hall, give ear to the bard’” (Politics 1338a23–24; cf. Homer, Odyssey 9.7–8). It’s true that the prerequisites listed in Plato’s Republic include musicality, but the place of music in Aristotle’s philosophy of education is categorically different. According to Aristotle, it’s not just that a student must have some aptitude for music in order to accomplish the aims of a good education but that the enjoyment of music is among the things that are valuable for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else.

Differences in what constitutes an activity of one’s leisure time correlate to differences in the qualities that a prospective student must possess before being educated. If, for example, we allow that bird-watching or playing chess or enjoying poetry can be considered appropriate to someone who is at leisure, then Plato’s list (again, for example) is loaded down with needless requirements. Courage, manifested especially by a disregard for death, is not necessary for bird-watching, and not being given to petty speech or boasting is not required for playing chess well.

Therefore, if the goals of education include contemplation of the Platonic forms, then, like Socrates and his friends in the Republic, we should not be surprised if relatively few people satisfy the prerequisites for the kind of education outlined there. But if the goals are not so lofty, then the prerequisites will not be as stringent, and we should expect many more people—perhaps even all—to qualify for a good education.

To all the above, however, there is a caveat: Educators are unable to discern with requisite accuracy who meets the prerequisites for a good education. There are no infallible tests for such things, and history shows us that the road to contemplation of the forms begins in places Socrates and his friends did not imagine. History also reveals that those of us who think we are well-suited to embark on a Platonic education are sometimes self-deceived. In light of these things, at the least, no one ought to be prevented by anyone else from trying to attain the heights of even the highest form of education, and those who can assist them in their attempts ought to help as they are able.

 

Gary Hartenburg, PhD is an associate professor of philosophy and director of the Honors College at Houston Christian University, and the author of Aristotle: Education for Virtue and Leisure, available from Classical Academic Press.




Dr. Gary Hartenburg
Director, The Honors College
Houston Christian University

 

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