Key Arguments

• Rejects mindless rulers: 'you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts... having no reason in them'.
• Legislative requirement: 'you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions'.
• Rank of dialectic: 'the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go?'

Source Quotes

In all that I should most certainly agree with you. And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educating—if the ideal ever becomes a reality—you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts (Literally 'lines,' probably the starting-point of a race-course.), having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters? Certainly not.

Certainly not. Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? Yes, he said, you and I together will make it.

Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said.

Key Concepts

• like posts (Literally 'lines,' probably the starting-point of a race-course.), having no reason in them
• the greatest skill in asking and answering questions
• Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences

Context

Translates dialectic’s supremacy into an educational mandate for rulers.

Perspectives

Plato

Supports institutionalizing dialectical training to crown the curriculum and qualify rulers.

Socrates

Emphasizes dialogical mastery as essential to governance and the apex status of dialectic.