Here's a tiny excerpt.
Plato: Education and the Value of Justice
Men and Women
As an account of political organization on the larger scale, Plato's defense of an aristocratic government was unlikely to win broad approval in democratic Athens. He used the characters Glaucon and Adeimantus to voice practical objections against the plan. They are especially concerned (as Plato's Athenian contemporaries may well have been) with some of its provisions for the guardian class, including the participation of both men and women, the elimination of families, and the education of children.
Most fifth-century Greeks, like many twentieth-century Americans, supposed that natural differences between males and females of the human species entail a significant differentiation of their proper social roles. Although Plato granted that men and women are different in height, strength, and similar qualities, he noted that these differences are not universal; that is, for example, although it may be true that most men are taller than most women, there are certainly some women who are taller than many men. What is more, he denied that there is any systematic difference between men and women with respect to the abilities relevant to guardianship—the capacity to understand reality and make reasonable judgments about it. (Republic 454d) Thus, Plato maintained that prospective guardians, both male and female, should receive the same education and be assigned to the same vital functions within the society.
In addition, Plato believed that the interests of the state are best preserved if children are raised and educated by the society as a whole, rather than by their biological parents. So he proposed a simple (if startlingly unfamiliar) scheme for the breeding, nurturing, and training of children in the guardian class. (Note that the same children who are not permitted to watch and listen to "dangerous" art are encouraged to witness first-hand the violence of war.) The presumed pleasures of family life, Plato held, are among the benefits that the higher classes of a society must be prepared to forego.
Philosopher / Kings
A general objection to the impracticability of the entire enterprise remains. Even if we are persuaded that Plato's aristocracy is the ideal way to structure a city-state, is there any possibility that it will actually be implemented in a human society? Of course there is a sense in which it doesn't matter; what ought to be is more significant for Plato than what is, and philosophers generally are concerned with a truth that transcends the facts of everyday life.
But Plato also believed that an ideal state, embodying the highest and best capabilities of human social life, can really be achieved, if the right people are put in charge. Since the key to the success of the whole is the wisdom of the rulers who make decisions for the entire city, Plato held that the perfect society will occur only when kings become philosophers or philosophers are made kings. (Republic 473d)
Only those with a philosophical temperament, Plato supposed, are competent to judge between what merely seems to be the case and what really is, between the misleading, transient appearances of sensible objects and the the permanent reality of unchanging, abstract forms. Thus, the theory of forms is central to Plato's philosophy once again: the philosophers who think about such things are not idle dreamers, but the true realists in a society. It is precisely their detachment from the realm of sensory images that renders them capable of making accurate judgments about the most important issues of human life.
Thus, despite prevalent public skepticism about philosophers, it is to them that an ideal society must turn for the wisdom to conduct its affairs properly. But philosophers are made, not born. So we need to examine the program of education by means of which Plato supposed that the future philosopher-kings can acquire the knowledge necessary for their function as decision-makers for the society as a whole.
Read more here: http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/2h.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
