A Research On Plato’s Philosophy Of Paideia From The Perspective Of Body-soul Relation

By taking Socrates’ eros,and death from Plato’s portrait of him as a prototype,the thesis restores the true essence of eros and death in Plato’s philosophy of paideia,therefore tries to build a path to good paideia based on a harmonious body-soul relation.The thesis bases on the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades,and investigates thoroughly that the essence of eros is the permanent avidity of goodness,that is,one’s aspiration to have the goodness forever which is unavailable all along,therefore one has to live in a permanent avidity. The thesis also clarifies the ascending path of eros: from loving a beautiful body to all beautiful bodies and finally to loving a beautiful soul; from pursuing a healthy lifestyle to learning pure knowledge,and finally ascending to love beauty itself. By contrasting common people’s eros and Scoreates’ eros,the author concludes that pursuing a good life is more important than living. Therefore,one should treat his or her soul well and live a self-examined life.The greatest eros of philosopher is to pursue wisdom,while the acquisition of wisdom depends on pure soul to observe the things themselves. Consequently,body becomes a kind of obstacle for those who pursue wisdom. Then,lovers of wisdom require that soul should think independently without the disturbance of body,which means the approach of death. Death is the departure between body and soul,and body will be perished soon when one dies,while the soul will go to another world as it is immortal. The thesis takes Socrates’ death as an example and illustrates that the reason for Socrates to face unjust death sentence safely was not his lack of love for life,but because his pursuit of goodness had transcended life and death. The thesis also indicates that the significance of Socrates’ death is to advocate the living people to face death prudently,and live in the way being towards death.Plato’s path to paideia is that: death is the fulfillment of greatest eros; to understand death is the start-point of making man a man,being towards death is the true essence of his indoctrination; how to live a better life is in fact the question of how eros ascends. Such a path to paideia begins with the love of body and ends with the love of pure soul. The significance of Plato’s path of paideia is to enlighten us that the current life-education should re-examine the relationship between body and soul,and advocates us to keep a healthy lifestyle and cultivate the eros of goodness,therefore to guide the children to comprehend and live a positive life.