In both the Republic and the Laws, the leader of the philosophical conversation claims that the goodness of the πόλις and its citizens depend on the goodness or fineness of its civic play (παιδιά) (cf. Resp. 558b3-5, Leg. 797a7-9 and 803c2-e2). Why? Arguably, and following several hints from both dialogues, because good play and good education coincide. But even if this is true, we are then faced with a further question: why does good education coincide with good play? Why should good education be playful, or good play educative? At a crucial point in Book VII of Plato’s Republic, Socrates tells Glaucon that play is best suited to the education of a free person (ἐλεύθερος) (536e1-537a1). And it is quite clear from the context that he does not simply mean moral-political education, but also and chiefly philosophical education. In this lecture, I propose to examine the reasons that may lead Socrates to affirm such a thing, and for his interlocutor(s) to seemingly accept his affirmation (cf. 537a3). Why is liberal education playful? Or why is play especially suited to liberal education? How does this thought – although undeveloped in the context of its affirmation – relate to Socrates’ other famous comments on the nature of good education in the Republic, most notably that genuine education is a conversion of the soul and not a transmission of knowledge (521c6; cf. 518b6-d-7)? Taking a close look at relevant passages from the text, I shall address these questions with the hope that they not only help us get a better grasp of Plato’s vision of good education, but also, and perhaps most importantly, that they help us understand better our own contemporary educational experiences.

Antoine Pageau-St-Hilaire obtained his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago in 2023. Since then, he has been working as a postdoctoral research fellow affiliated with Boston University, Oxford, and the University of Ottawa. He studies ancient philosophy - especially Plato and Aristotle - and its philosophical reception in the post-Kantian European tradition. He is the author of Heidegger and German Platonism: The Shadows of Marburg (CUP, forthcoming), Heidegger and his Platonic Critics (CUP, 2025), and several essays and articles on ancient philosophy, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. He is currently finishing a book-length study of Gadamer's Aristotelianism and beginning work on a book on play and education in Plato.