Abstract

Plato regards education as a means to achieve justice, both individual justice and social justice. According

to Plato, individual justice can be obtained when each individual develops his or her ability to the fullest. In

this sense, justice means excellence. For the Greeks and Plato, excellence is virtue. According to Socrates,

virtue is knowledge. Thus, knowledge is required to be just. From this Plato concludes that virtue can be

obtained through three stages of development of knowledge: knowledge of one's own job, self-knowledge,

and knowledge of the Idea of the Good. According to Plato, social justice can be achieved when all social

classes in a society, workers, warriors, and rulers are in a harmonious relationship. Plato believes that all people

can easily exist in harmony when society gives them equal educational opportunity from an early age to

compete fairly with each other. Without equal educational opportunity, an unjust society appears since the

political system is run by unqualified people; timocracy, oligarchy, defective democracy, or tyranny will result.

Modern education in Japan and other East Asian countries has greatly contributed to developing their

societies in economic terms. Nevertheless, education in those countries has its own problems. In particular

the college entrance examination in Japan, Korea, and other East Asian countries caused serious social

injustices and problems: unequal educational opportunity, lack of character education, financial burden on

parents, and so on. Thus, to achieve justice, modern society needs the Platonic theory education, for Plato's

philosophy of education will provide a comprehensive vision to solve those problems in education. There is

also some controversy about the relationship between education and economics. It is a popular view

common in East and West that businesses should indirectly control or even take over education to

economically compete with other nations. However, Plato disagrees with this notion since business is

concerned mainly with profit whereas a true education is concerned with the common good based upon

the rational principle of individual and social justice.

Lee, Myungjoon, "Plato's philosophy of education: Its implication for current education" (1994). Dissertations
(1962 - 2010) Access via Proquest Digital Dissertations. AAI9517932.
http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations/AAI9517932