Paideia

In the culture of ancient Greece and later of the Greco-Roman world at large, the term paideia (also spelled paedeia) (/paɪˈdeɪə/; Greek: παιδεία, paideía) referred to the rearing and education of the ideal member of the polis or state. It incorporated both practical, subject-based schooling and a focus upon the socialization of individuals within the aristocratic order of the polis. The practical aspects of this education included subjects subsumed under the modern designation of the liberal arts (rhetoric, grammar, and philosophy are examples), as well as scientific disciplines like arithmetic and medicine. An ideal and successful member of the polis would possess intellectual, moral and physical refinement, so training in gymnastics and wrestling was valued for its effect on the body alongside the moral education which the Greeks believed was imparted by the study of music, poetry, and philosophy. This approach to the rearing of a well-rounded Greek male was common to the Greek-speaking world, with the exception of Sparta where a rigid and militaristic form of education known as the agoge was practiced.The Greeks considered paideia to be carried out by the aristocratic class who tended to intellectualize their culture and their ideas. The culture and the youth were 'moulded' to the ideal of kalos kagathos, 'beautiful and good.' This idea is similar to that of the medieval knights, their culture, and the English concept of the gentleman.The Greeks described themselves as 'Lovers of Beauty', and they were very much attuned to aesthetics. They saw and appreciated beauty in nature. They noticed a particular proportion called the golden ratio (roughly 1.618) and its recurrence in many things. They spoke of the need for balance as the golden mean—choosing the middle and not either extreme—and believed that beauty was not in the superficialities of color, light, or shade, but in the essence of being, expressed in structure, line, and proportion.Isocrates helped in making Athens one of the leaders in Greece through his paideia. Isocrates' goal was to construct a practice of education and politics that gave validity in the democratic deliberative practice while remaining intellectually respectable. He wanted to elevate his Athenian audience to the level of philosophia by making them apply, in particular, a principle of intellectual consistency to their lives. The fundamental aspects of his paideia was achievement of consistency on the individual, the civic, and the panhellic level. Isocrotean paideia became crucial to the survival of the polis through the identification of rhetorical with political excellence and the elevation of the Isocrotean audience to the status of philosophoi.