1.3. PAIDÉIA DURING THE TIME OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY
One can look for the beginnings of the cultural process called paidéia – the highest physical and spiritual perfection – in the sense of the highest human arête, in the fifth century BC. From that time, the aforementioned perfection has also been quite consciously extended to the spiritual culture.60 The category of ←30 | 31→paidéa is crucial for the understanding of the Greek culture sources because it was organized on a fundamentally different basis than other cultures.
Paidéia (from the Greek word pais – a boy, a child; Latin: educatio, humanitas, cultura) was understood as a comprehensive “cultivation,” rational education of man in the individual and social aspect.61 This term occurred for the first time just in the fifth century BC in the plays of Aeschylus, where it was synonymous with “feeding,” education of children.62 In the broader sense, it denoted a general, human nature-oriented basis of education or an ideal model of education developed by Ancient Greeks and regarded as embracing the whole of mankind.63 This term was used to define both the course and the process of a child’s education as well as its goal and effect. It was about the formation of man from an early age through upbringing and education. The indicated process was closely connected with reading the human nature since the Greeks claimed that one’s susceptibility to education came from nature, whereas the application of appropriate methods, the so-called cultivation of nature – was the work of man called culture. The proper education should help man achieve the superior goal of his life which is the activation of the supreme powers with regard to the supreme subject. This process is very long and difficult. Man, unlike the world of nature, is born as ill-suited to life, and even more to achieve the true purpose of life. Man must learn how to live in the manner tailored to him if he wants to develop the most humane features within himself. Due to the fact that it does not happen automatically, man needs help. It can be obtained through proper education – paidéa. It is therefore the human equipment in proper dispositions for proper action. Such permanent dispositions were called aretai, or virtues becoming like the second nature. The task of paidéa is just to fill the gaps of nature. The classical one had nothing in common with inventing the worlds of value. Culture included everything that man needed in order to pass through the broken passage from nature to a person at the level of action. Putting the crack together is made possible due to reason which enables man to recognize the proper means permitting the genuine personal life. Various inclinations that drive man in different directions are oriented by him at the ultimate personal good. Thanks to education and virtues, this direction takes permanent forms such as, for instance, the character.
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All spheres of human life need ordering. At first, it the sphere of reason itself that must be able to properly read the good, the hierarchy of goods and to select proper means that lead to good. That was the task of the virtue of prudence. Additionally, the emotional life must be ordered, both in the realm of desire (pleasure, unpleasantness) – moderation, and in terms of the warlike feelings (fear, anger) – valour. Finally, our relationships with other people as well as with the society as such need to be organized. This is the place for three types of justice – distributive, commonly shared and replaceable. It is this harmonious cooperation of all the indicated virtues in man that ensured a complete, integral development of a person.
Thus, the Greek culture-paidéia was an education of man, the work of the human reason oriented at an accomplishment of a certain ideal, the development of a more perfect man. The principle of the Greek culture was not individualism but humanism in the sense of shaping a proper human character and true humanity. It was only in the Greek culture that education was deliberately targeted at a specific human ideal and not only at the preparation for a profession or the formation of one social layer within a single nation.64
Over time, due to Thucydides, Aristophanes and sophists, the reflection on the notion of paidéia became deeper. It started to be identified with a comprehensive encyclopaedic education – énkýklos paidéia, providing with a practical preparation for living in a society. Isocrates, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle significantly contributed to the understanding of this concept by pointing to ethical issues of the arising model of education: “[…] they put less emphasis on the practical aims of education but they valued ethical and, in a broader sense, philosophical education instead, which they regarded as the most effective instrument of shaping a perfect man. In this way paidéia became the central concept within the pedagogical reflection, with clear anthropological implications.’65
The educational trends that occurred under the conditions created by a democracy – in the writings of Plato, Isocrates and Xenophon – still referred to the old aristocratic tradition and the ideal model of areté characteristic for it.66 It is indicated in the postulate of Plato that the best education is the condition and the justification of elite governments and the indicated education requires ←32 | 33→in turn the best natural conditions as a basis for its development to take place67. Plato thought that birth was of significant importance during the formation of elites since only the best could give birth to the best ones. The indicated view had its origin in the old Greek noble ethics. The nobles believed in the existence of innate values, constituting the core of any true virtue and therefore they sought to preserve the priceless blood heritage.68
1.3.1 Plato – from an ideal to an idea
Plato based his ideas concerning paidéa on a former, old, Greek concept. He claimed that the new elite, composed of the representatives of the highest areté, could be created through a purposeful natural selection.69 His philosophical interpretation of education can be found both in the works such as the State and the Laws. In the first of the works, Plato considered the highest level of paidéa, whereas in the second one, he analyzed the indicated process from the earliest childhood.70 In the Laws he observed that the main element of paidéa was a proper pre-school education.71 What is to be achieved and perfectly mastered by a grown-up person should be awakened in the soul of a child already at the indicated stage. He pointed to the dependence of the complete areté in every field from the conditions under which man was raised. Education denotes teaching areté. It begins in childhood and awakens in us the desire to become good citizens.72 Plato opposed the true paidéa to vocational training and he called it a training to reach spiritual perfection. Professional skills are only tools and means to higher aims. In the Laws he pointed out that the proper understanding of the nature of paidéa was the basis of all legislation. Considering its essence, Plato placed man within the state and related the value of individual education to his or her ability to cooperate with others. The precepts of law in the state are the signs of the operation of logos to which man should subordinate first of all. Paidéia relies on subordinating the soul to the logos.73 Therefore, the ideal of ←33 | 34→paidéa is finally the self-control and not the control exercised by others (which was the case in Sparta).74
In Laws, Plato strongly emphasized the relationship between the word paidéia and pais – a boy or a child.75 He thereby indicated that the education starts at an early age, in childhood, when the process of harnessing desires through reason begins. He divided children’s education into stages. Children who are 3–6 years of age should be engaged in playing only. However, punishments should not be avoided at that time.76 Moreover, children should not be forced to play. Nannies should be employed to monitor their behaviour. Both boys and girls under 6 should be taught by women. Coeducation was obligatory by that age, later children were separated.77 When it came to exercise, Plato recommended dancing and wrestling, with the exception of everything that was not useful for later military training.78 All the recommendations were aimed at developing the free and refined style. Therefore, the tendency to underline the importance of the development of the military spirit dominated in Plato’s theory. The common military conscription was the legal basis for the civic life in the Athenian democracy.
