ABSTRACT
Plato is fascinating, and that, even alone, perhaps, is enough to make reading him worthwhile. But it is all the better if he is useful, too—useful in the sense that the time we spend with him can teach us about more than just him. In this book, I have explained a way I think it can, a way that, if I am right, is significant and promising. It is significant because the health of a democracy depends on how thoughtful and discerning its citizens are, and the quality of people's thinking affects their individual welfare, too. It matters whether they engage in self-examination, in my sense of the term. No less important, it matters whether students in schools have intrinsic motivation to learn. Yet the question of how to draw people into self-examination is difficult and is not reducible to the everyday question of, say, how teachers in schools can interest students in course material. The latter question, which is itself difficult, of course, is a problem for pedagogy, narrowly conceived. The former question is a problem for psychagogy, in part since taking up self-examination requires a fundamental change of heart.
