Paideia Platonikê: Does the later Platonist programme of education retain any validity today?

Abstract

The question I wish to address on this occasion is whether the Platonic course of study retains any validity in the modern world. I shall argue that some version of it indeed might, though by no means for everybody. A course of education, after all, which begins with the rules for rational thought and argumentation, then turns to the question of the true nature of the self, followed by a consideration of the nature of ethics, politics, physics and metaphysics, should serve very well for developing well-rounded and ratio­nal persons. I believe that the true legacy of the Platonist model of education, on which modern civilisation is progressively turning its back, is that the properly structured study of quite abstract subjects is the best training for the mind, even when the mind is turned to the solution of entirely practical problems.