Paideia

Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture by Werner Jaeger, translated by Gilbert Highet, 1070 pages (3 vols.)

 

This monumental work traces the historical development of the Greek concept of paideia, which can be translated as "education".  Education, in this sense, is the cultivation of the individual in the shape of an ideal of human development, this ideal forming the center of the traditional understanding of culture.  "Education" thus differs from "training", which is the acquisition of practical technical skills.  In addition to being concerned with the upbringing of children, paideia was at the heart of the classical understanding of art, as well as the individual and his relation to the state.

 

Jaeger surveys the whole history of Greek culture up to the time of the Macedonian conquest.  The first volume covers the time from the heroic paideia of Homer and the pastoralism of Hesiod through to the comedies of Aristophanes and the cosmic harmonies of Pythagoras.  The second volume is devoted to Socrates and Plato, while the third covers the rhetoric of Isocrates and Demosthenes as well as Plato's later work.

 

This is a work of formidable learning and encyclopedic scope, presenting hundreds of years of thought and development, including epic poetry, tragedy, rhetoric, political science, comedy, history, and philosophy.  As Jaeger notes, Greek culture forms the foundation of the West, and Western civilization returns to it again and again, whenever it is exhausted and needs refreshing from the source.  This is a compelling distillation of that source.