A Study On Plato's Paidiea

As the title of Jaeger's great book entitled Paidiea:The Ideals of Greek Culture shows,Paideia is the ideal of Greek Culture;and from the times of Sophists, paideia is not only the practices of Greek culture,but also one of the main topics of Greek philosophy.On the basis of the controversies between Sophists and Socrates, the theory of Greek paideia got a systematic form firstly through Plato.Contrasting with the theory of Sophists' anti-paideia,Protagoras' political paideia and Socrates' philosophical paideia,the main characters of Plato's theory of Paideia are demonstrated as follows:based on the doctrine of soul,Plato analyses the essence of virtues and devises different way for the different virtues,emphasizes phases of paideia.According to Plato,as the soul can be divided into three parts,citizens and polis are divided into three classes:the working class;the military class;and the rule class.Paideia starts from the military class.Since paideia means the cultivation of the capacity of virtue,it begins with education of gymnasium and music,from outside to inside,from imitation to interalization,to the philosophical dialectic education devised for the citizens whose intellect are proved to be most excellent after primary education.The peak of paideia is the sight of highest good,outside of opinion cave.