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Paideia #1-3
Paideia: A Formação do Homem Grego
Each volume was conceived as an independent unit, [Vol 1-Archaic Greece, The Mind of Athens; Vol 2-In Search of the Divine Centre; Vol 3-The Conflict of Cultural Ideas in the Age of Plato], taken together they constitute a monumental integrated survey of the whole Greek cultural tradition in the early & classical periods. A profound & timeless study of the foundation of Western Civilization.
1456 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
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950 people want to read
About the author
Werner Wilhelm Jaeger
70 books52 followersJaeger attended school at Lobberich and at the Gymnasium Thomaeum in Kempen Jaeger studied at the University of Marburg and University of Berlin. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1911 for a dissertation on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. His habilitation was on Nemesios of Emesa (1914). Only 26 years old, Jaeger was called to a professorship with chair at the University of Basel in Switzerland. One year later he moved to a similar position at Kiel, and in 1921 he returned to Berlin. Jaeger remained in Berlin until 1936, when he emigrated to the United States because he was unhappy with Adolf Hitler's regime. Jaeger expressed his veiled disapproval with Humanistische Reden und Vortraege (1937) and his book on Demosthenes (1938) based on his Sather lecture from 1934. Jaeger's messages were fully understood in German university circles; the ardent Nazi followers sharply attacked Jaeger.
In the United States, Jaeger worked as a full professor at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1939, at which time he moved to Harvard University to continue his edition of the Church father Gregory of Nyssa on which he started before World War I. Jaeger remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until his death. The Canadian philosopher James Doull was among his students at Harvard.
Jaeger wrote two dissertations, one in Latin and one in German, on Aristotle's Metaphysics. Jaeger's edition of the Metaphysics was printed in 1957. Only two years after editing Gregory of Nyssa's Contra Eunomium (1921), Jaeger became famous with his groundbreaking study on Aristotle in 1923 which largely remained undisputed until the 1960s.
Jaeger founded two journals: Die Antike (1925–1944) and the influential review journal Gnomon (since 1925).
Jaeger was the editor of the church father Gregory of Nyssa, Gregorii Nysseni Opera, editing Gregory's major work Contra Eunomium (1921, 1960). This edition is a major scholarly achievement and the philological foundation of the current studies on the Cappadocian Fathers.
Jaeger is perhaps best known for his multivolume work "Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture", an extensive consideration of both the earliest practices and later philosophical reflections on the cultural nature of education in Ancient Greece, which he hoped would restore a decadent early 20th century Europe to the values of its Hellenic origins.
Jaeger's last lecture, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (1961) is a very impressive summary of his life's work covering Greek philology, philosophy and theology from Homer, the Presocratic philosophers, Plato to the Church Fathers, roughly a thousand years.
Source
In the United States, Jaeger worked as a full professor at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1939, at which time he moved to Harvard University to continue his edition of the Church father Gregory of Nyssa on which he started before World War I. Jaeger remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until his death. The Canadian philosopher James Doull was among his students at Harvard.
Jaeger wrote two dissertations, one in Latin and one in German, on Aristotle's Metaphysics. Jaeger's edition of the Metaphysics was printed in 1957. Only two years after editing Gregory of Nyssa's Contra Eunomium (1921), Jaeger became famous with his groundbreaking study on Aristotle in 1923 which largely remained undisputed until the 1960s.
Jaeger founded two journals: Die Antike (1925–1944) and the influential review journal Gnomon (since 1925).
Jaeger was the editor of the church father Gregory of Nyssa, Gregorii Nysseni Opera, editing Gregory's major work Contra Eunomium (1921, 1960). This edition is a major scholarly achievement and the philological foundation of the current studies on the Cappadocian Fathers.
Jaeger is perhaps best known for his multivolume work "Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture", an extensive consideration of both the earliest practices and later philosophical reflections on the cultural nature of education in Ancient Greece, which he hoped would restore a decadent early 20th century Europe to the values of its Hellenic origins.
Jaeger's last lecture, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (1961) is a very impressive summary of his life's work covering Greek philology, philosophy and theology from Homer, the Presocratic philosophers, Plato to the Church Fathers, roughly a thousand years.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 18, 2015
The summer before starting at Loyola I spent a lot of time up at grandmother's cottage in SW Michigan. The nearest town, Bridgman, was just starting its first library in what had been, long ago, the town's bank. Excited by the prospect, I stopped by, introduced myself to the head librarian, Ms. Roth, and asked if she needed help setting up.
She did. Not having a large budget, they had put in an appeal for donations. The back of the place was piled high with books, most of them garbage. I offered to separate the wheat from the chaff. She agreed.
Amongst the gothic romances and condensed books were some treasures, most notably in the fields of classics and ancient history and philosophy. I imagined that some amateur classicist had died, his wife bringing the stuff over, relieved to get it out of the house. There was quite a lot. These, I urged Ms. Roth to retain.
Retain them she did--most of them. Some, however, she felt too weighty for any prospective readership, so she let me take what I wanted. Take I did. Jaeger's and Gomperz' sets being the two greatest treasures of my haul.
She did. Not having a large budget, they had put in an appeal for donations. The back of the place was piled high with books, most of them garbage. I offered to separate the wheat from the chaff. She agreed.
Amongst the gothic romances and condensed books were some treasures, most notably in the fields of classics and ancient history and philosophy. I imagined that some amateur classicist had died, his wife bringing the stuff over, relieved to get it out of the house. There was quite a lot. These, I urged Ms. Roth to retain.
Retain them she did--most of them. Some, however, she felt too weighty for any prospective readership, so she let me take what I wanted. Take I did. Jaeger's and Gomperz' sets being the two greatest treasures of my haul.
January 10, 2026
Werner Jaeger’s Paideia stands as one of the most ambitious and influential studies of ancient Greek culture in the twentieth century. Conceived as a comprehensive intellectual history of Greek education and moral formation, the three volumes—Origins of Greek Thought (1934), The Conflict of Cultural Ideals in Greek Civilization (1944), and The Crisis of Greek Ideals (1947)—trace the evolution of the Greek concept of paideia: the holistic formation of character, intellect, and civic virtue. Jaeger’s project goes beyond a narrow history of institutions or curricula; it interrogates the very soul of Greek cultural identity, arguing that the ideal of paideia was both formative and, ultimately, dialectically unstable.
In Volume I, Jaeger seeks the roots of Greek paideia in the Homeric and pre-Socratic imagination. Rather than treating early Greek education as anachronistic, he reads Homeric epic as a formative educational text for the aristocratic youth of the early polis. Jaeger’s analysis foregrounds the Homeric hero’s struggle toward self-mastery and the cultivation of aretē (excellence). Here, paideia is not formal schooling but a cultural condition in which myth, ritual, and heroic values instruct the young toward moral and civic engagement.
A significant strength of this volume is Jaeger’s interdisciplinary method: he blends philology, philosophy, and comparative anthropology to illustrate how the nascent Greek notion of rational inquiry emerges organically from poetic consciousness. This chapter remains indispensable for scholars who wish to understand how early Greek thought framed education as an existential orientation rather than a technical practice.
Nevertheless, some readers may critique Jaeger for idealizing Homeric culture and for the relative scarcity of direct evidence regarding actual educational practices in the early archaic period. Jaeger’s reliance on literary imagination as evidence can feel speculative, though it is often compelling.
Volume II advances Jaeger’s thesis by juxtaposing competing models of cultural formation during the classical age. The central contention is that Greek paideia was never monolithic; rather, it was the site of persistent tension between divergent ideals. Jaeger characterizes this conflict in opposition between the aristocratic aretē of the Homeric tradition, the rational and universal ethos of philosophical inquiry epitomized by Socrates and Plato, and the democratic ethos of civic participation fostered in Athens.
Jaeger’s treatment of the Socratic turn is particularly insightful. He reads Plato not merely as a philosopher but as a pedagogue who seeks to reconcile dialectic with moral formation. Here, paideia becomes consciously reflexive: it acknowledges its own constitutive tensions and seeks a systematic resolution.
Volume II excels in its cultural breadth and theoretical depth. Jaeger deftly situates philosophical developments within wider social and political transformations, especially Athenian democracy, Spartan discipline, and the tragic dramatists. Yet his broad scope sometimes yields uneven attention: some pivotal figures and movements receive more cursory treatment than warranted. Additionally, his implicit privileging of elite intellectual currents may underplay the diversity of educational practices across the Greek world.
The final volume charts the decline of the classical paideia ideal in the face of Hellenistic pluralism and Roman dominance. Jaeger perceives this period as a crisis in which the classical synthesis of intellectual freedom and civic responsibility erodes. The educative ideal fragments into specialized disciplines—rhetoric, philosophy, sophistic technique—each vying for cultural authority.
Jaeger’s narrative here is elegiac. The loss of a unified paideia is, for him, not merely historical but existential: the coherent self-fashioning of the classical Greek citizen gives way to instrumental learning detached from civic life. The volume’s greatest contribution lies in its interpretation of Hellenistic philosophy not simply as decline but as evidence of the internal contradictions latent within the classical ideal. Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Middle Platonism, in Jaeger’s reading, are responses to historical disintegration as much as intellectual innovation.
However, subsequent scholarship has problematized Jaeger’s teleology of decline. Some modern historians argue that the Hellenistic period should not be characterized primarily as a dissolution of ideals but as a transformation of cultural and educational norms worthy of their own autonomous consideration. Jaeger’s classical bias, though philosophically rich, can overshadow the distinctive value of Hellenistic intellectual life.
Jaeger’s Paideia remains a seminal work for understanding the intellectual and moral foundations of Greek culture. His central hypothesis—that education (paideia) is constitutive of cultural identity and moral imagination—has resonated across classics, philosophy, education theory, and intellectual history.
The volumes collectively innovate on several fronts:
Conceptual Scope: Jaeger reframes “education” not as a set of practices but as a civilizational ideal that shapes human self-understanding.
Interdisciplinary Sensibility: His synthesis of texts, ideas, and cultural contexts prefigures later approaches in intellectual history and cultural studies.
Philosophical Depth: By situating Plato and Aristotle at the heart of the paideia project, Jaeger illuminates the educational dimensions of classical philosophy.
Critically, later scholars have challenged aspects of Jaeger’s methodology: his Hellenocentric teleology, occasional neglect of non-elite voices, and the speculative nature of his earliest reconstructions. Nevertheless, the intellectual ambition and richness of his reading continue to make Paideia an essential reference for anyone engaging seriously with Greek cultural history.
Werner Jaeger’s Paideia offers a monumental, if debated, vision of Greek cultural formation. Its three volumes demand sustained engagement, rewarding readers with a deeply nuanced account of how ideals of education and moral life shaped—and were shaped by—the course of Greek history. For scholars of classics and intellectual history, Paideia remains both a touchstone and a provocation: a work that challenges us to reconsider the role of education not merely as transmission but as the very ground of human cultural achievement.
GPT
In Volume I, Jaeger seeks the roots of Greek paideia in the Homeric and pre-Socratic imagination. Rather than treating early Greek education as anachronistic, he reads Homeric epic as a formative educational text for the aristocratic youth of the early polis. Jaeger’s analysis foregrounds the Homeric hero’s struggle toward self-mastery and the cultivation of aretē (excellence). Here, paideia is not formal schooling but a cultural condition in which myth, ritual, and heroic values instruct the young toward moral and civic engagement.
A significant strength of this volume is Jaeger’s interdisciplinary method: he blends philology, philosophy, and comparative anthropology to illustrate how the nascent Greek notion of rational inquiry emerges organically from poetic consciousness. This chapter remains indispensable for scholars who wish to understand how early Greek thought framed education as an existential orientation rather than a technical practice.
Nevertheless, some readers may critique Jaeger for idealizing Homeric culture and for the relative scarcity of direct evidence regarding actual educational practices in the early archaic period. Jaeger’s reliance on literary imagination as evidence can feel speculative, though it is often compelling.
Volume II advances Jaeger’s thesis by juxtaposing competing models of cultural formation during the classical age. The central contention is that Greek paideia was never monolithic; rather, it was the site of persistent tension between divergent ideals. Jaeger characterizes this conflict in opposition between the aristocratic aretē of the Homeric tradition, the rational and universal ethos of philosophical inquiry epitomized by Socrates and Plato, and the democratic ethos of civic participation fostered in Athens.
Jaeger’s treatment of the Socratic turn is particularly insightful. He reads Plato not merely as a philosopher but as a pedagogue who seeks to reconcile dialectic with moral formation. Here, paideia becomes consciously reflexive: it acknowledges its own constitutive tensions and seeks a systematic resolution.
Volume II excels in its cultural breadth and theoretical depth. Jaeger deftly situates philosophical developments within wider social and political transformations, especially Athenian democracy, Spartan discipline, and the tragic dramatists. Yet his broad scope sometimes yields uneven attention: some pivotal figures and movements receive more cursory treatment than warranted. Additionally, his implicit privileging of elite intellectual currents may underplay the diversity of educational practices across the Greek world.
The final volume charts the decline of the classical paideia ideal in the face of Hellenistic pluralism and Roman dominance. Jaeger perceives this period as a crisis in which the classical synthesis of intellectual freedom and civic responsibility erodes. The educative ideal fragments into specialized disciplines—rhetoric, philosophy, sophistic technique—each vying for cultural authority.
Jaeger’s narrative here is elegiac. The loss of a unified paideia is, for him, not merely historical but existential: the coherent self-fashioning of the classical Greek citizen gives way to instrumental learning detached from civic life. The volume’s greatest contribution lies in its interpretation of Hellenistic philosophy not simply as decline but as evidence of the internal contradictions latent within the classical ideal. Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Middle Platonism, in Jaeger’s reading, are responses to historical disintegration as much as intellectual innovation.
However, subsequent scholarship has problematized Jaeger’s teleology of decline. Some modern historians argue that the Hellenistic period should not be characterized primarily as a dissolution of ideals but as a transformation of cultural and educational norms worthy of their own autonomous consideration. Jaeger’s classical bias, though philosophically rich, can overshadow the distinctive value of Hellenistic intellectual life.
Jaeger’s Paideia remains a seminal work for understanding the intellectual and moral foundations of Greek culture. His central hypothesis—that education (paideia) is constitutive of cultural identity and moral imagination—has resonated across classics, philosophy, education theory, and intellectual history.
The volumes collectively innovate on several fronts:
Conceptual Scope: Jaeger reframes “education” not as a set of practices but as a civilizational ideal that shapes human self-understanding.
Interdisciplinary Sensibility: His synthesis of texts, ideas, and cultural contexts prefigures later approaches in intellectual history and cultural studies.
Philosophical Depth: By situating Plato and Aristotle at the heart of the paideia project, Jaeger illuminates the educational dimensions of classical philosophy.
Critically, later scholars have challenged aspects of Jaeger’s methodology: his Hellenocentric teleology, occasional neglect of non-elite voices, and the speculative nature of his earliest reconstructions. Nevertheless, the intellectual ambition and richness of his reading continue to make Paideia an essential reference for anyone engaging seriously with Greek cultural history.
Werner Jaeger’s Paideia offers a monumental, if debated, vision of Greek cultural formation. Its three volumes demand sustained engagement, rewarding readers with a deeply nuanced account of how ideals of education and moral life shaped—and were shaped by—the course of Greek history. For scholars of classics and intellectual history, Paideia remains both a touchstone and a provocation: a work that challenges us to reconsider the role of education not merely as transmission but as the very ground of human cultural achievement.
GPT
July 4, 2022
The first men that believe in the humanism, the origin of it... The great force of the spirit of the humanity found in the deep roots of the community for life... connections of spiritual and social life... everything comes together, like a love letter, to understand Paideia in Jaeger's book.
After two months, a lot of necessary rereads of Athenian tragedies, and a lot of rereads of the same lines and pages of his book, I finally finished and the feel is as if I had traveled to the past and listened to Homer and Plato. Jaeger was in love with Greek culture, ancient and actual I think, because he never said something disrespectful, so common in scholars, and throughout the book, he always returns to thoughts of deep love and respect for the beliefs and ways of thinking of the Greeks at every social and artistic stage.
Having read this book has been perhaps the best thing I have done for myself, I cannot explain the million new ways of understanding the tragedies, the epic, and the Greek spirit itself that I have now, everything is a huge world that connects and weaves together, and thanks to Jaeger it is a little clearer and much larger.
After two months, a lot of necessary rereads of Athenian tragedies, and a lot of rereads of the same lines and pages of his book, I finally finished and the feel is as if I had traveled to the past and listened to Homer and Plato. Jaeger was in love with Greek culture, ancient and actual I think, because he never said something disrespectful, so common in scholars, and throughout the book, he always returns to thoughts of deep love and respect for the beliefs and ways of thinking of the Greeks at every social and artistic stage.
Having read this book has been perhaps the best thing I have done for myself, I cannot explain the million new ways of understanding the tragedies, the epic, and the Greek spirit itself that I have now, everything is a huge world that connects and weaves together, and thanks to Jaeger it is a little clearer and much larger.
May 26, 2017
Jaeger's brilliant insight was to explore the growth of Hellenic culture by emphasizing the role of education. It is a profound perspective that links the earliest Archaic poetry to the sophisticated philosophy of Plato. After reading more than a thousand pages, when one finishes the chapter on Demosthenes and the triumph of Macedonia, one's understanding of Greek civilization hasn't been transformed so much as it has been broadened through a deep synthesis which connects desperate elements into an illuminating whole.
Currently reading
June 28, 2014از آن کتاب های کم یاب است!! خیلی دلم می خواد بخوانمش و همچنین پیدا کنم و بخرمش!
Want to read
June 13, 2014Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, 3 Vols
by Werner Wilhelm Jaeger, Gilbert Highet (translator)
4.56 of 5 stars 4.56 · rating details · 45 ratings · 1 review
Each volume was conceived as an independent unit, [Vol 1--Archaic Greece, The Mind of Athens; Vol 2--In Search of the Divine Centre; Vol 3--The Conflict of Cultural Ideas in the Age of Plato]; taken together, they constitute a monumental integrated survey of the whole Greek cultural tradition in the early & classical periods. A profound & timeless study of the foundation of Western Civilization.
PAIDEIA : A FORMAÇÃO DO HOMEM GREGO / WERNER JAEGER ; TRAD. DE ARTUR M. PARREIRA
AUTOR(ES): Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm; Parreia, Artur M., trad.
PUBLICAÇÃO: Lisboa : Aster, 1979
by Werner Wilhelm Jaeger, Gilbert Highet (translator)
4.56 of 5 stars 4.56 · rating details · 45 ratings · 1 review
Each volume was conceived as an independent unit, [Vol 1--Archaic Greece, The Mind of Athens; Vol 2--In Search of the Divine Centre; Vol 3--The Conflict of Cultural Ideas in the Age of Plato]; taken together, they constitute a monumental integrated survey of the whole Greek cultural tradition in the early & classical periods. A profound & timeless study of the foundation of Western Civilization.
PAIDEIA : A FORMAÇÃO DO HOMEM GREGO / WERNER JAEGER ; TRAD. DE ARTUR M. PARREIRA
AUTOR(ES): Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm; Parreia, Artur M., trad.
PUBLICAÇÃO: Lisboa : Aster, 1979
November 30, 2022
"Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written" (Thoreau). This series demands your full attention. It is a staggering work of a brilliant scholar that provides rich insight into the birth of culture in Periclean Athens. It is a series that is full of treasures and insight that will grow with you. I recommend it as essential reading for any scholar building a foundation of understanding of western civilization.
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September 7, 2016Ho approfondito solo le sezioni inerenti al tema della mia tesi di laurea, ma credo di poter dire che si tratti di un volume imprescindibile sul tema della Paideia.
December 9, 2024
Das Buch Paideia. Die Formung des Griechischen Menschen von Werner Jaeger (1888-1961) widmet sich der Entwicklung der griechischen Erziehung und Bildung, die nicht nur ein Spiegel der kulturellen und politischen Veränderungen ist, sondern auch Ausdruck eines grundlegenden Strebens nach der Formung des Menschen. Jaeger zeichnet den Weg dieses Bildungsideals von der homerischen Heldenethik, geprägt durch die Arete des Einzelnen, über die spartanische Staatszucht und die bürgerliche Tugend der Polis bis hin zur philosophischen Erkenntnis des Guten bei Sokrates und Platon. Dabei eröffnet er einen facettenreichen Blick auf die verschiedenen Epochen und gesellschaftlichen Gruppen, die dieses Streben nach Bildung geprägt und weiterentwickelt haben.
Im Zentrum von Jaegers Analyse stehen die wechselnden Ideale und Erziehungspraktiken, die untrennbar mit den politischen und sozialen Strukturen der griechischen Welt verwoben sind. Er beleuchtet die entscheidende Rolle von Poesie, Musik und Philosophie für die Herausbildung der Paideia, jenes umfassenden Bildungskonzepts, das die geistige und moralische Formung des Menschen zum Ziel hat. Jaegers Buch wird so zu einer tiefgründigen Untersuchung der kulturellen Errungenschaften Griechenlands, die die Grundlage für das humanistische Bildungsideal Europas legten.
Im Zentrum von Jaegers Analyse stehen die wechselnden Ideale und Erziehungspraktiken, die untrennbar mit den politischen und sozialen Strukturen der griechischen Welt verwoben sind. Er beleuchtet die entscheidende Rolle von Poesie, Musik und Philosophie für die Herausbildung der Paideia, jenes umfassenden Bildungskonzepts, das die geistige und moralische Formung des Menschen zum Ziel hat. Jaegers Buch wird so zu einer tiefgründigen Untersuchung der kulturellen Errungenschaften Griechenlands, die die Grundlage für das humanistische Bildungsideal Europas legten.
January 3, 2023
Espectacular.
February 11, 2024
Obra de referencia para entender la cultura clásica.
September 29, 2025
Esse livro é uma verdadeira enciclopédia sobre a Grécia antiga!
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October 5, 2025no l'he llegit sencer pero crec que es suficient💜
to-keep-reference
October 12, 2016Cuando los americanos ocuparon Leipzig yo estaba estudiando los volúmenes 2 y 3 recién publicados de la obra Paideia de Werner Jaeger — también cosa rara, que esta obra de un «emigrante» escrita en alemán y publicada en una editorial alemana pudiera aparecer en los peores años de la guerra—. ¿Guerra total?
Verdad y Método II Pág.387
Verdad y Método II Pág.387
August 31, 2017
How the Greeks lived?
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April 24, 2018Demasiado. No pude acabarlo, más por pereza que por el libro en si.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews