Do it! Your description of the typical student reaction to Plato took me back to my days in PHIL 101. It was spot on.

Like you said, sprinkle him in when discussing other philosophers. Maybe bring up the Allegory of the Cave when discussing Kant’s a priori knowledge, or Descartes’ dualism. Create dialogues between Plato and later philosophers. I’d be interested to know where exactly in those dialogues that Plato would lose the plot and not know what his intellectual descendants are talking about.

I feel Plato should only be taught as a cautionary study. The authoritarian leanings of The Republic should absolutely be discussed and not glorified. But really that should be a whole course of its own.

Come on over to the heretics side! The water’s warm! 😃