From Paideia to High Culture. Imelda Chlodna-Blach
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СКАЧАТЬ As Xenophon wrote, Socrates claimed that only good and beautiful road led to true happiness.146 What makes man better and better is the moral improvement, in particular, the acquisition of the virtue of justice (dikaiosyné) and not the practical skills. The noble disposition was manifested by the religious cult.147 Xenophon himself was regarded as a representative of the ←46 | 47→aristocratic virtue placed by the Greeks at the highest level. His person reflected the combination of the physical beauty with the internal desire to reach what was beautiful.148 An ancient biographer – Diogenes Laërtius called Xenophon “modest and extraordinarily handsome (kalos).’149 In Diogenes’ account, Xenophon was beautiful (kalos) by nature but he was to become good (agathos) only under the influence of the teaching of Socrates. Socrates was Xenophon’s teacher of good manners and his model of moral conduct. Thus such features as: self-control, moderation, simplicity, inner harmony and fervent piety were attributed to Xenophon.150 However, his ideal was “a Doric hero with a beautiful, hardened, athletic body, able to cope with various situations, always full of good ideas, able to use the right word, humane in behaviour, faithful to friends, pious and brave.’151 He was the character resembling the characters from the works of Homer.

      Kalokagathía denoted general culture, based on the ability to relate to all people and gods in a proper way. It was mainly associated with the moral beauty and belonged to the virtues of a free man.152 As we can therefore see, apart from the moral – personal dimension, the ideal of kalokagathía had also a social dimension. It referred to proper relations with other people, developed on the basis of a morally correct character. A society, contrary to a community, similarly to any individual person, should be internally ordered and organized. Only then does it deserve to be called a society. The indicated order is based not only on a certain type of unity but also on a hierarchy of goods. Therefore, there must be some chief good, called a common good that unites a given society. This is the social dimension of moral beauty.

      Plato gave a wider – cultural meaning to the term kalokagathía. The aforementioned word appears in his works in a decumulate form: kalos kai agathos. It is associated with an educational ideal promoted from an early age and primarily ←47 | 48→refers to morality. In Plato’s thought, Kalokagathía is the aim of paidéa. The character of the aforesaid kalokagathía is defined by Plato in opposition to injustice and wickedness and thus, it he provides it with a remarkably ethical colouring.153 In a narrower sense, it denotes an innate, natural openness to the truth that must be obeyed if one wants to become a philosopher, a beautiful, good man. In addition, it indicates an intuitive ability to recognize what is morally good and lawful and what is not, with no need to establish the law and improve the rights all the time. Moreover, it relates to the aristocratic layer. Beauty and good are also the features of thought which moves up to the Good in and of itself.154 Plato expressed the original sense of the “general” old Greek culture of the polis in the Laws. As he claimed, the essence of any true culture was to “training from childhood in goodness, which makes a man eagerly desirous of becoming a perfect citizen, understanding how both to rule and be ruled righteously.’155 Thus, culture is something general since the ability to be attuned to politics is the ability to understand general matters. The indicated ability is to a great extent possessed by a philosopher, referred to in the State by Plato as kalos kai agathos.156 It is the philosopher who has access to true cognition and true knowledge since he can notice the permanent in the reality, the universal and the immutable, namely its “idea.” He is the only one who can determine what is in fact truly fair and beautiful whereas the views of the general public revolve between a non-being and a true being.157 That is why Plato claimed that satisfying the tastes of the masses made the true education of man, based on the criterion of permanent values, impossible.158 He wrote that a philosopher was a man who carried a reliable paradeigma, namely an idea of good, in his own soul.159 Due to the ability to perceive the indicated norm, the philosopher outweighs an ordinary politician. He subordinates all his activities to the cognition of good as the highest goal of man. For Plato, it was an ideal of a perfect ruler.160 Additionally, the philosopher was ←48 | 49→also a man of high culture for Plato. The features characterizing him are: excellent memory, cleverness, quickness of mind, desire for knowledge and perseverance. He is not small-minded and he does not focus on details or external goods. He values the truth, justice, valour. He controls himself. The aforementioned features are crucial to achieve a higher intellectual culture. Education and a long experience play a vital role in the development of such a person.161 Among other things, the indicated factors provide a balance between the intellectual and moral side. It is important due to the fact that, according to Plato, the process of cognition must be accompanied by the development of character. An ideal form of a society which is indispensable for the complete development of an individual’s abilities called upon by nature to philosophy is an ideal state of Plato.162 It allows a philosopher to pass from contemplation to action. At first, he shapes his own character (heauton plattein) to be able to develop the characters (ethe) of others.163 The Platonic philosopher is an embodiment of kalokagathía – the highest ideal of humanity, typical for a classical era of the Greek culture. Plato transforms here the existing epic – a heroic ideal model of man into a new philosophical ideal. However, frequent references to the principles of the old chivalric ethics are very clear, as for example the requirement to be persistent (menein) in both learning and in fight. The aforementioned principles were transferred by Plato into the realm of the spirit. The similarity found here lies in the fact that just like the Greek education stemmed from the layer of ancestral nobility, Plato’s entire process of education aimed at the formation of a new aristocracy of the spirit. Through the conscious exploitation of education to implement a particular ideal model of man, the Platonic philosophy of education fell within the trend of humanism, characteristic to the entire Greek culture. Its purpose is the full development of man in man. Everything present in a human being is subordinated by it to his rational component, leading to a completely different notion of life – as bíos164 and a true human perfection. The Greek state thought ←49 | 50→shaped the western concept of a free personality as well, that was not based on the human law but on the cognition of the eternal norm, which was the purpose of the entire Platonic philosophy of education.

      In the writings of Aristotle kalokagathía completes all virtues. It is reached when detailed virtues are achieved. It refers to decent good that is the goal in itself.165 Stagirite uses the following words to define man with the most perfect of virtues, namely the noble man: “A person is a noble person because of possessing those goods that are noble for their own sake, and because of doing noble deeds for their own sake. What things, then, are noble? The virtues and the works of virtue.’166 He mentions justice and moderation among the indicated virtues. Therefore, nobility is the complete perfection.167

      It is the feature of young people who have the character and display thinking typical of free people.168 Kalos denotes the behaviour which complies with virtues, the highest happiness, everything that is to be done in line with one’s will.169 In Politics, Aristotle associates the term kalokagathía with people who belong to noble families.170 Additionally, he points out that it guarantees the good life in the state: “The end of the city-state is living well, then, but these other things are for the sake of the end. So political communities must be taken to exist for the sake of noble actions, and not for the sake of living together.’171 Thus, the realization of beauty is the accomplishment of the morally beautiful deeds that, on the one hand, allow to shape people who are friendly to one another, on the other hand, however, make it possible to activate the purely human acts in man.

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