著者

高橋 雅人

出版者

神戸女学院大学

雑誌

女性学評論 (ISSN:09136630)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.17, pp.37-53, 2003-03-31

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It is well known that Plato insists in the Books II-III of his Republic that guardians' education should be consisted of both music and gymnastics. While one of these, i. e. music (or poetry), is widely and thoroughly argued in this dialogue, the other, i. e. gymnastics, is much less discussed. However, this does not lead us to the conclusion that gymnastics is not so important for the education. In this paper I analyze 403c9-412bl of Republic III, 'the gymnastics part', with two purposes : first, to show the unity of 'the gymnastics part', which is at first sight seemed to have a digression ; second, to clarify the feature of gymnastics in Plato's educational system. Before analyzing 'the gymnastics part', I check how Plato uses the word 'rouvaotikn (gymnastics) in all of his dialogues. According to these data, when he argues art as itself (as in mainly Gorgias), he always treats gymnastics with medicine. On the other hand, when his concern is about the application of art (as in Republic and in Laws), Plato never discusses gymnastics without music. In the next section I propose the unity of 'the gymnastics part', which can be divided into three segments. This reading shows that the second segment (405al-410a6) is not digressive but significant for our understanding of Plato's treatment of gymnastics. The reason why he discusses medicine here is that gymnastics is important not only for childhood and youth but also for a person's whole life in order that one does not need physicians except unavoidable wounds or seasonal diseases. And Plato's critic against Herodicus, who mixed gymnastics with medicine, is to be linked with the final segment (410a7-412bl) in which he tells us that the mixture of gymnastics with music is good and desirable. In this blend the other and main purpose of gymnastics is newly uncovered. In the first segment (403c9-404e6) gymnastics is said to be for physical strength, but in the final it is declared to be for psychic harmony. The last section of my paper deals with the question how and by whom gymnastics can be mixed with music. That a 'philosopher' can mingle the two arts most befittingly with his wisdom is my answer.