Children come first. An aspect of the educational program in Plato’s Laws

MACERI, SANDRA.

Nostos, Asociacion Cultural Helénica.

Nostos.

Lugar: Buenos Aires.; Año: 2008 p. 1 - 11

1518-0689

The Laws shows how the legislator proceeds in relation with the formulation and promulgation of the laws which are directed to a special kind of citizens: “the un-(educated) paideia”. This text holds that the function itself that in his last text Plato grants the figure of the legislator is the one of a fair State-maker. Plato does not hesitate: the general aim of education is the virtue and the duty to become a good citizen. Plato strongly believes that the uneducated souls are, among others, children’s souls, but this souls are precisely the ones which occupy a central position in the Platonic thought. Since, in the first place, they are the ones to whom the polis shall give the paideia with the purpose of changing their fate.