Eros And Paideia

Paideia is the cultivation of arete, while in the course of functionalization of human beings, thus self-paideia has been forgotten in modern education. It is necessary for us to go back to ancient Greek and reiterate the proposition of "virtue is knowledge", and resume the paideia function of education. We should illustrate the paideia on human in Plato’s educational philosophy, and in the meantime, we are obliged to turn our concentration from metaphysical conception of the ideal of "Goodness" to "Eros", which is the basic drive of human beings. In this way, man can be released from over-rationalism, and be able to go back to the origin of life to see the necessity and possibility of paideia.First of all, the thesis investigates the description of Eros in Plato’s dialogues. Socrates begins with Eros’s myth of origin, and deludes that Eros is the symbolism of philosopher from the fact that he is the spirit between God and human, the son of Poros and Penia. As philosopher has the self-consciousness of his own deficiency and ignorance, so he keeps the aspiration of profusion and wisdom and tries his best to improve himself. In the meantime, Eros is born by means of beauty, so human beings have the aspiration of immortality in beauty, by means of body as well as soul. To be born by means of body is the common humanity, while by means of soul is the presentation of the excellence of soul. Philosophia is the highest presentation of eros, which manifested in education, is that students and teachers to pursue wisdom together, and teachers realize his own pursuit of wisdom in the process of guiding students. As human beings have the pursuit of immortality as well, eros is the aspiration of beauty and goodness.Since eros is the aspiration of beauty and goodness, then paideia is to stimulate eros and make man be virtuous. On the one hand, human beings confuse desire with eros and pursue happiness in secular life, which is the human nature, while desire cannot manifest the excellence of soul. Because of this, there is a need for eros to ascend and it is the necessity of paidia; on the other hand, desire is the base of eros, and is underpinned by the love of body which is the origin of life. Because of this, there is a possibility for the realization of paideia by means of eros. In this sense, the central duty of paideia is to stimulate and guide eros.Then, the thesis investigates the process of paideia that Socrates exerted on Alcibiades. Socrates’ role of teacher determines his responsibility of paideia, and in the process of paideia on others he realizes his own pursuit of wisdom. Even though Alcibiades is by nature endowed with remarkable talents, and full of political eros, regrettably, Socrates failed to guides him set foot on the road of arete. What’s more, Socrates was executed by the charge of corrupting youth in the end. Thus circumstance fully manifests manifests the difficulty of paideia:eros can only be guided but not be compelled; to have intelligence is not to have virtue; the exercise of soul is a cause for life-long. The failure of exerting paideia on Alcibiades does not despoil Socrates’ image as a great teacher, because his meaning to be a teacher is not only in the real process of guiding youth, but more importantly, in his process of exerting paideia in his dialogues.As a teacher, Socrates differs himself from the natural philosophers who meditate isolatedly, and also differs from the sophists who expose his wisdom to others. In his life time, Socrates exerts paideia by means of dialogues in crossroad. By starting from commonsense, he encourages people to know themselves, to pursue wisdom and to live a good life in the way of irony. Socrates’exertion of paideia on his polis is manifested in Plato’s memories of his teacher. Plato’s dialogues represent his teacher vividly and bring his teaching back to contemporary time, which make the process of paideia full of vigor. Plato’s paideia on us manifest his prudence as a philosopher, and his dialogues invite the real readers to approach and in this way to achieve self-paideia. So we should examine ourselves and guide our eros in the retrospect of paideia education represented by ancient Greek.Plato, the classical philosopher who is full of eros, does not only present eros as a deficiency of human nature, but also present it as a gift full of productivity. He investigates the tension between eros in specific individual and the eros in the pursuit of goodness, and manifests such tension by presenting us the life of Socrates to exert paideia in dialogues. The teacher vanishes while the teaching still preserves. So let us follow Socrates and live a good life in self-examination by means of Plato’s dialogues.