Cultivating citizens: The pedagogical prerequisites of classical Athenian democracy

This study will explore the classical Athenian conception of education. Education functioned as a prerequisite for active civic participation and thus an essential underpinning of democracy. More specifically, the study will examine the two competing schools of pedagogical thought in classical Athens, those of Socrates and the Sophists. Both Socrates and the Sophists used education in philosophy and rhetoric, respectively, to cultivate effective democratic citizens. After providing a detailed account of the evolution of Athenian democracy to establish the historical framework, the study will shift to a discussion of the Socratic method and then to the rhetorical approach of the Sophists. My aim will be to illustrate both the common goal of instilling qualities deemed valuable to a participant in the democracy, as well as an ideological clash over the means. Education in civic virtue, variously defined but deemed necessary in one form or another, could therefore be achieved outside of immersion in political life through widely varying modes of private study in philosophy or rhetoric.;The introduction of two competing schools of thought for educating democratic citizens necessarily raises questions concerning their merits. Accordingly, the study moves to a close reading of Plato's Republic. Here, I argue that the educational program prescribed in the dialogue for the rulers and their auxiliaries in a utopian state, in tandem with the indispensable role of rhetoric throughout the text, reveals the judgment of Plato that an education in rhetoric is a powerful tool for political life, but its use must be controlled by the virtue acquired from an education in philosophy. Finally, I bring the question of educating effective democratic citizens to the present, asking whether a Socratic or Sophistic education might provide benefits to students in the democracy of the contemporary United States by evaluating the modern variations of the Socratic Method.