Why We Form a Society
Imagining their likely origins in the prehistorical past, Plato argued that societies are invariably formed for a particular purpose. Individual human beings are not self-sufficient; no one working alone can acquire all of the genuine necessities of life. In order to resolve this difficulty, we gather together into communities for the mutual achievement of our common goals. This succeeds because we can work more efficiently if each of us specializes in the practice of a specific craft: I make all of the shoes; you grow all of the vegetables; she does all of the carpentry; etc. Thus, Plato held that separation of functions and specialization of labor are the keys to the establishment of a worthwhile society.
The result of this original impulse is a society composed of many individuals, organized into distinct classes (clothiers, farmers, builders, etc.) according to the value of their role in providing some component part of the common good. But the smooth operation of the whole society will require some additional services that become necessary only because of the creation of the social organization itself—the adjudication of disputes among members and the defense of the city against external attacks, for example. Therefore, carrying the principle of specialization one step further, Plato proposed the establishment of an additional class of citizens, the guardians who are responsible for management of the society itself.
In fact, Plato held that effective social life requires guardians of two distinct sorts: there must be both soldiers whose function is to defend the state against external enemies and to enforce its laws, and rulers who resolve disagreements among citizens and make decisions about public policy. The guardians collectively, then, are those individuals whose special craft is just the task of governance itself.
Training the Guardians
In order to fulfill their proper functions, these people will have to be special human beings indeed. Plato hinted early on that one of their most evident characteristics will be a temperamental inclination toward philosophical thinking. As we've already seen in the Apology and in the Phaedo, it is the philosopher above all others who excels at investigating serious questions about human life and at judging what is true and best. But how are personal qualities of this sort to be fostered and developed in an appropriate number of individual citizens? (Republic 376d)
The answer, Plato believed, was to rely upon the value of a good education. (Remember, he operated his own school at Athens!) We'll have an opportunity to consider his notions about higher education later, but his plan for the elementary education of guardians for the ideal state appears in Book III. Its central concern is an emphasis on achieving the proper balance of many disparate components—physical training and musical performance along with basic intellectual development.
One notable feature of this method of raising children is Plato's demand for strict censorship of literary materials, especially poetry and drama. He argued that early absorption in fictional accounts can dull an person's ability to make accurate judgments regarding matters of fact and that excessive participation in dramatic recitations might encourage some people to emulate the worst behavior of the tragic heros. (Republic 395c) Worst of all, excessive attention to fictional contexts may lead to a kind of self-deception, in which individuals are ignorant of the truth about their own natures as human beings. (Republic 382b) Thus, on Plato's view, it is vital for a society to exercise strict control over the content of everything that children read, see, or hear. As we will later notice, Aristotle had very different ideas.
Training of the sort described here (and later) is intended only for those children who will eventually become the guardians of the state. Their performance at this level of education properly determines both whether they are qualified to do so and, if so, whether each of them deserves to be a ruler or a soldier. A society should design its educational system as a means to distinguish among future citizens whose functions will differ and to provide training appropriate to the abilities of each.
Source:Plato: The State and the Soul
Women as well as men qualify to be guardians because they possess the same virtues and abilities as men, except for a disparity in physical strength between the average woman and the average man. The axiom justifying the inclusion of women, namely that virtue is the same in women as in men, is perhaps a notion that Plato derived from Socrates. The inclusion of women in the ruling class of Plato's utopian city-state represented a startling departure from the actual practice of his times. Indeed, never before in Western history had anyone proposed— even in fantasy— that work be allocated in human society without regard to gender. Moreover, to minimize distraction, guardians are to have neither private property nor nuclear families. Male and female guardians are to live in houses shared in common, to eat in the same mess halls, and to exercise in the same gymnasiums. The children are to be raised as a group in a common environment by special caretakers. Although this scheme is meant to free women guardians from child-care responsibilities and enable them to rule equally with men, Plato fails to consider that women guardians would in reality have a much tougher life than the men because they would have to be pregnant frequently and undergo the strain and danger of giving birth. At the same time, he evidently does not believe they are disqualified for ruling on this account. The guardians who achieved the highest level of knowledge in Plato's ideal society would qualify to rule over the ideally just state as philosopher-kings.
To become a guardian, a person from childhood must be educated for many years in mathematics, astronomy, and metaphysics to gain the knowledge that Plato in the Republic presented as necessary if one was to rule for the common good. Plato's specifications for the education of guardians in fact make him the first thinker to argue systematically that education should be the training of the mind and the character rather than simply the acquisition of information and practical skills. Such a state would necessarily be authoritarian because only the ruling class would possess the knowledge to determine its policies and make decisions determining who is allowed to mate with whom to produce the best children.
Source:Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander, published on "Perseus"