This volume provides a comprehensive, learned and lively presentation of the whole range of Plato's thought but with a particular emphasis upon how Plato developed his metaphysics with a view to supporting his deepest educational convictions. The author explores the relation of Plato's metaphysics to the epistemological, ethical and political aspects of Plato's theory of education and shows how Plato's basic positions bear directly on the most fundamental questions faced by contemporary education.

Samuel Scolnicov

Preface. Reference to classical works 1. Introduction 2. The Background and the Challenge. Sophistic Education 3. Socrates on the Unity of the Person 4. Education, Teaching and Training: Protagoras 5 The Impossibility of Neutrality: Gorgias 6. Sophistic or Socratic? Euthydemus 7. The Concept of Learning: Meno 8. Recollection Revisited: Theaetetus 9. The Perfectability of the Individual. Phaedrus and Symposium 10. Method and Truth: Republic V-VII 11. Virtue without Knowledge: Republic I-IV, IX-X 12. An Educator Looks at Literature and Drama: Republic II-III, X. Notes. Index.