The Perennial Value of Socratic and Aristotelian Paideia

Abstract

I intend to discuss the perennial value of the form of education proposed by Socrates and by Aristotle, by comparing it to the alternative forms of paideia proposed in their day, as well as in our own day. Before we examine views on what constitutes paideia, understood as a means of educating people, we need to examine views on what the end of education is, for the end dictates the means. As Aristotle notes «sometimes the aim has been correctly proposed, but people fail to achieve it in action, sometimes they achieve the means successfully but the end that they posited was a bad one, and sometimes they err as to both.» [Politics, 1331b30-34.]