Core Functions: The Center of Liberating Education

The Socratic Core Curriculum: Inviting Workers To Be Full Citizens.

Plato’s dialogue, Protagoras, tells the story of a young man who is seeking help from Socrates to gain access to an education from a famous sophist named Protagoras. Socrates, in his typical fashion, questions the young man (and later the sophist) about why such an education is desirable. At first, the youth simply laughs at the question. Perhaps like many a child of wealth and privilege, he just assumes that everybody knows why education matters. He finally answers that he wants to study with someone who is thought to be marvelously clever. Hippocrates wants an education from a big name that will demonstrate to others that he, himself, must be also wonderfully wise. But Socrates is not satisfied with his young friend’s claim to seek a good reputation. Socrates asks the teenager what skills he hopes to learn and what profession he hopes to gain from studying with Protagoras, reminding him that he could study any one of many fine trades from sculpting to medicine. Finding the young man suddenly unable to answer with anything but a blush, Socrates fills the silence suggesting that perhaps what the boy wants is a liberal arts education. “Τουτων γαρ συ εκαστην ουκ επι τεξνη εμαθεs, ωs δημιουργοs εσομενοs, αλλ' επι παιδεια, ωs τον ιδιωτην και τον ελευθερον πρεπει.” (p. 312b) My translation reads, “For you do not learn these lessons in order to gain skills in order to become a worker, but this education is what is necessary to be a free citizen.” The emphasis is mine.