The owl of Athena: Reflective encounters with the Greeks on pedagogical Eros and the paideia of the soul (Psyche)

Abstract

This discursive encounter about Eros, a passionate form of philia, the classical Greek generic term for Love, between Socrates and the mysterious priestess Diotima allegedly took place at an erotic symposium in fifth-century Athens and is recounted in Plato's philosophical and poetic masterpiece, the Symposium. Also, and importantly for my purposes here, included in Plato's Symposium was the first philosophical discussion on pedagogic pederasty or pedagogical eros, a homosexual form of relationship, which was germane to the ancient Greek educational and pedagogical cultures, which, in the case of classical Athens, was epitomized by the concept of paideia. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.