From Paideia to High Culture. Imelda Chlodna-Blach
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being created by God in His image and likeness. Christianity set a new goal for the human being, which consisted in transcending nature and culture toward God. Thus, the very understanding of high culture underwent an important modification, while still maintaining its universal nature. However, this original, ancient and Christian meaning of the term “culture” went through further changes at the end of the nineteenth century, when the term became popular in philosophy and humanities. As its popularity grew, its meanings diversified depending on the context of a particular scientific discipline, trend, and philosophical system. This is why, over time, “culture” became one of the most ambiguous terms.
Contemporary definitions of culture are limited to highlighting only some of its aspects. They usually emerge in such fields as sociology of culture, cultural anthropology, cultural psychology, semiotics. Thus, they focus on points of reference such as: value (M. Weber), meaning and symbol (C. Geertz, D. Schneider), interpretation, group identity (R. Williams), lifestyle, beliefs, and attitudes (Encyclopaedia Britannica), mental and physical reactions and activity (F. Boas), complex of behaviours (W. Roseberry). Indeed, a closer analysis of these definitions reveals that they arbitrarily take into consideration only selected causes-reasons constitutive of culture. All such definitions emerge within the framework of philosophical debates concerning the relation between man and society, on the one hand, and the relation between culture and reality, on the other hand. The meanings that they attribute to culture come from a subject or a given community, which makes them a kind of projection rather than examination of existing reality. In fact, terms such as “reality” or “objectivity” never appear in contemporary definitions of culture. This is an evidence of a subjective approach to this phenomenon, which makes it impossible to reach its essence. As a result of failure to understand what culture is, there is a growing tendency to remove the difference between high and low culture.
Due to the variety of approaches, it is justified to determine a point in time when culture became culture. To that end, and despite the complexity and diversity of culture, it is necessary to indicate its main subject, goal, and nature. This task becomes feasible within the framework of a philosophy which prioritizes the role of metaphysics; for it is metaphysics that helps us understand categories such as: subject, substance, person, nature. It includes the general theory of being and presents the ultimate factors causing something to be a being rather than a non-being. Having started from this foundation, the point of reference for the study of culture still needs to stay with the realistic vision of being and ←11 | 12→man – philosophical anthropology, which provide answers to the most fundamental questions concerning the human way of being, which falls under the common name of “culture.” Using the theory of being developed within metaphysics, philosophical anthropology reveals the fundamental structure of man as a personal being. Thus, it gives us an objective tool to explain the fact of culture.
For this reason, I shall discuss culture using the categories of realistic metaphysics, both in the historical and systemic spheres, while taking into consideration the explanations provided within philosophical anthropology. This approach will make it possible to indicate the important factors decisive for the human mode of action. It will also allow us to notice the actual causes, which explain human action and give it purpose. Thus, I shall demonstrate that the essence of culture rests upon the actualization of man’s personal life against the backdrop of experience of the world, and that culture itself is an effect of such a rationalisation of reality; that it is a quality (perfection) of the human being, while cultural artefacts are an image and expression of that perfection, an external sign and a manifestation of culture.
The historical approach will help us reach the roots of theoretical reflection about culture, which can be traced back to Ancient Greece. In what follows, I shall demonstrate that the emergence of the very term “culture” is one thing, while the origins of the theoretical thought about that way of existence, which is characteristic for human beings and differentiates them from the natural world, is quite another thing.
In the first part of the book, I shall explain the meaning of the term “culture” in Ancient Greece and Rome, exposing the Greek origins of what we describe today as “high culture.” Therefore, I shall reach back to the roots of the Greek understanding of culture, which can be found as early as in the works of the great poet, Homer, who understood culture as a consciously nursed ideal model of human perfection. He claimed that culture is expressed through the entirety of man’s character – not only through his external behaviour and actions but also through his internal attitude. And neither the way of conduct nor the internal attitude is accidental; in fact, they are consciously shaped toward a particular goal. It was Homer who noticed that such preparation begins in a small social group, the nobility, aristoi, of a given nation. Therefore, we should look for the beginnings of so-called high culture in Ancient Hellenic noble culture, to which the term areté (virtue) was closely linked. This vision, initiated by Homer, finds continuation in the concept, or rather, cultural process, called paideia, which emerged at the time of Athenian democracy. I shall explain the meaning of this term and discuss important contributions to its understanding, especially the ←12 | 13→thought of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates, who discussed ethical aspects of the emerging ideal model of education.
Next, I shall present the circumstances in which this ideal model was first described in terms of kalokagathía. I shall explain its moral-personal aspect, as well as its social aspect. I shall analyse the way in which the understanding of the term changed in Plato’s thought. Finally, I shall discuss the next, even higher, level of culture, which was described by Aristotle. That level is expressed by a kind of greatness and strength of the soul, which Aristotle calls magnanimity (Greek: megalopsychía, Latin: magnanimitas, literally: “greatness of soul”). This distinctive feature of the human being representing high culture consists in the ability of making correct judgments about great and small goods. As Aristotle observes, the search for greater goods poses numerous difficulties, which are easier to overcome for the “great-souled” being. Thus, magnanimity appears as an indispensable condition of genuinely human high culture.
Finally, I shall point to the moment when that Greek ideal model met the Roman ideal model of education. I shall discuss the circumstances in which people began to use the word “culture” to describe the rational process of individual and social upbringing of the human being. I shall explain how these two terms, which may well designate the entirety of Greek and Roman civilisations as opposed to barbarism, came to be seen as identical.
The second part of this book discusses the way in which the Christian ideal of culture stemmed from Hellenic culture. Here, I shall indicate the roots and characteristic features of the specifically Christian understanding of culture, while also explaining how Christianity both complemented Greek philosophy and drew new conclusions from it. The primary link between the ancient heritage and the achievements of medieval thought was the thought of the Early Church Fathers. Therefore, I shall present the contributions to the humanities of: Saint Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Marcus Minucius Felix, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Cassiodorus, Saint Gregory the Great. Their great contribution consisted in the strengthening of a positive bond between Christianity and Hellenism. However, it is important to remember that their understanding of the Christian paideia was based on the so-called Christian philosophy, which did not distinguish between philosophical and theological aspects but rather saw them as standing in a mutually inspiring relationship. I shall describe this approach in terms religious personalism. Next, I shall prove that the theological and philosophical aspects were separated when philosophy became autonomous, which finally took place in the thirteenth century, thanks to Saint Thomas Aquinas.
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The research perspective adopted for this part of the book will allow us to shift from historical discourse to metaphysical, or more precisely, anthropological discourse. I shall demonstrate that Saint Thomas’ emphasis on the role of the existence of beings in the world made philosophy more realistic and thereby provided philosophical cognition with more direct view of the world and empirical verifiability. I shall present St. Thomas’s notion of the person. I shall explain what it means that the human being is disposed towards personal life and point to those elements which should be actualized within that being. Finally, I shall demonstrate that is thanks to