The Debate Over Civic Education in Classical Athens

Abstract

Civic education aims at teaching the citizen how he ought to behave and how he ought to expect others to behave towards him: in contemporary parlance what his rights and his duties amount to in principle and in practice. This chapter claims first that strongly democratic regimes (like Athens) are confronted with a civic education dilemma in that democratic citizens must learn both to think alike and to think differently. It shows that the democratic Athenian polls regarded education in democratic as extremely important to social and political flourishing, and especially as a counterweight to the reciprocal and competitive that characterized Greek aristocratic culture. The chapter also shows that intellectual critics of the democracy shared with the democrats a conviction that standard (aristocratic) Greek values were misconceived and that education of citizens was necessary if superior alternative were to be promoted. Keywords: civic education; classical Athens; democratic regimes; Greek aristocratic culture