Completing Plato’s Laws, I see his focus on education as part of his political philosophy, and in it, I can see how people see Plato’s work that as both the birth of a formal, systematic philosophy and also political philosophy.
In Laws, Plato presents education as the foundation of a well-ordered society, inseparable from his broader political vision. For Plato, the laws of a city must cultivate virtue in its citizens, and this is achieved primarily through education, which extends beyond formal schooling to encompass cultural norms, religious practices, and civic rituals. Unlike in Republic, where an elite guardian class receives a specialized philosophical education, Laws envisions a more universal system in which all citizens are shaped from childhood to embody the virtues necessary for a stable state.
Education in Laws is both moral and civic, instilling piety, self-discipline, and a respect for authority. It begins in early childhood with music and physical training, reinforcing communal values and habituating citizens to the legal and ethical framework of the city. The goal is to create not just knowledgeable individuals but ones whose desires and character align with the good of the state. In this sense, Plato treats education as a mechanism of social control, guiding citizens toward virtue through carefully structured laws and customs.
Politically, Laws departs from the idealized philosopher-king of Republic and instead outlines a mixed constitution that balances monarchy and democracy. The state is governed by law rather than by the absolute rule of philosophers, yet these laws themselves function as a form of education. The legislation serves to instruct and correct behavior, shaping citizens into participants in a rational and harmonious order. Law, then, is not merely coercive but pedagogical—it teaches by setting moral and practical boundaries.
In connecting education to politics, Laws reflects Plato’s belief that no distinction exists between private virtue and public order. The stability of the city depends on the moral education of its people, and thus, legislation must actively cultivate wisdom and discipline. The result is a legal system that functions as an extended educational program, ensuring that citizens internalize and perpetuate the principles necessary for a just society.
Plato’s Laws assumes education can align the individual and the state, but a Hegelian view sees freedom emerging through contradiction, not preordained harmony. For Hegel, ethical life (Sittlichkeit) develops through struggle, not passive habituation. Law in Laws is static, imposing unity rather than allowing the dialectical movement of Geist.
Žižek would go further—Plato’s system masks its own ideological function. The attempt to mold desire into virtue is a fantasy of total control, repressing the inevitable return of excess. The state in Laws operates like ideology: it presents its own constructed order as natural, obscuring the tensions it cannot resolve. Education here does not form free subjects but preemptively forecloses political antagonism, making it a tool of domination rather than enlightenment.