Filozofija i drustvo 2022 Volume 33, Issue 2, Pages: 423-432
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2202423D
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Education and politikon zoōn
Dimić Zoran (University of Niš, Faculty of Philosophy), zoran.dimic@filfak.ni.ac.rs
Aristotle’s definition of humans determines his understanding of education
(paideia) in Politics as politikon zoōn. This definition should always be
considered together with the other most important Aristotle’s statement
about the human being, in which he claims that “man alone of the animals
possesses speech (logós)”. The ability to speak becomes most important
within the specific political partnership (pólis), which has at last
attained the limit of virtually complete “self-sufficiency” (autarkeías).
Contrary to “every household” where the eldest member “gives the law”
(themisteúei) to sons and spouses, in the city (pólis), the “speech (logós)
is designed to indicate (semaíneiv) the advantageous and harmful, and the
right and wrong”. In sum, justice became political (dikaiosunē politikóv).
It always appears like the outcome of an argument or dispute (krísis) on
what is just (toū dikaíou). We should understand education (paideia) in the
context of the previous statements. Dispute (amfisbetéin), the keyword of
Aristotle’s understanding of education, appears in the first sentence of
Politics VIII. Aristotle states that “they (people) dispute” the question of
what “constitutes education and what is the proper way to be educated”.
There is not one complete, definitive, and standard answer to the question
of what is the best way to be educated that we should implement in the
educational activities. Based on Aristotle’s view, I claim that the first
purpose of education is not to determine and constrain the activity of the
youth and citizens in general, but to provoke and facilitate the dispute on
the essence and aims of education.
Keywords: education, zoōn politikon, logos, politics, dispute
Show references
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Aristotle (1959), Politics, translated by H. Rackham, London, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Miller, Fred D., Jr. (2000), “Aristotle: Naturalism”, in Christopher J. Rowe, Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 321-343.
Plato (1967), Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.
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