New Classicists (Mar 2021)
Philosophy and Pedagogy in Horace Epistles I
Abstract
The conventional system of education, enkyklios paideia, was formalised in the Hellenistic period and to a large extent remained fixed throughout antiquity. Education in the ancient world existed to promote the transmission of an established body of knowledge, about which there was wide consensus, with numeracy, music, astrology and geometry occupying a peripheral place alongside literary and rhetorical studies. At the same time, paideia functioned as a vehicle of elite socialisation and political continuity, assimilating young boys into the rules of the dominant order and preparing them for a life of civic duty. Ancient sources indicate that philosophy was not part of the standard round of education, but that it occupied a separate position in the curriculum and attracted a very limited student intake, with philosophical educators employing alternative pedagogical methods and pursuing very different aims from the mainstream. The values and techniques of mainstream education were criticised by philosophers from the classical period onwards. In the Gorgias, Socrates contrasts the education of the sophists, which was supposed to equip young men for public life, unfavourably with the elenchus, which nurtures the individual soul. The contest between dialectical and rhetorical modes of education is picked up in the Republic, where Socrates argues that only a life-long education in philosophy can form the ideal citizen, while sophistic education corrupts its students by instilling them with false notions of right and wrong. Hostility to mainstream education became commonplace in Hellenistic ethics, with Epicurus urging the young initiate to ‘flee all education’ and praising the disciple who is ‘pure of paideia’. By the same token, the early Stoa regarded the cyclical arts as useful only insofar that they served virtue, with Seneca later dismissing the study of grammar and rhetoric as contributing little to the good life, since such learning was motivated by material ambition. Similar ideas are encountered throughout the philosophical successions.
