Education according to Socrates
The soul must be turned away from darkness and towards the light
"Forgive me, my friend. I am devoted to learning; landscapes and trees have nothing to teach me—only the people in the city can do that." - Socrates, Plato's Phaedrus
The goal of an education, according to Socrates, is to reach the truth through dialectic. He believed that one would be better off—braver and less idle—if they were constantly in search of what they do not know. Being and becoming knowledgeable involves a continuous state of motion. If one believes that it is not possible to find out what they do not know and stops searching, resigning to a state of rest, Socrates asserts, they not only fail to acquire knowledge, they will also forget what they have already learned. His most famous quote in this regard comes from his defense while on trial for corrupting the youth: "the unexamined life is not worth living."
How to pursue the truth, as well as the good and beautiful, through the dialectic is a topic conversation in many of Plato's dialogues featuring Socrates. Learning, knowledge, and the pursuit of truth are prevalent subjects of discussion in Phaedo, Theaetetus, Meno, and Republic1, as the excerpts below show, but the themes raised in these dialogues are sprinkled throughout others.
Socrates believed that one cannot be taught. Rather, according to him, learning is a process of recollection—the recovery of knowledge we already possess. Socrates asserts, a person's soul carries knowledge, and questioning allows one to recollect what they know. His approach to drawing out the wisdom of others to reach the truth—the dialectic; what we now call the Socratic method—is built on this premise.