ZBORNIK - Matica srpska

education, and the “song" to which all the other studies in which
the guardians must be schooled (music, gymnastics, and mathematics)
are a prelude. The one who is able to perform this collection
and division is properly called a dialectician, for he is able to see
the natural unity and plurality of things, and, therefore, can follow
his footsteps as in those of a god. 1
The new method of dialectical art that takes place only through
an arduous dialogical journey with another it is the art which Socrates
himself, the philosopher and educator, utilizes throughout Plato's
dialogues in an effort to turn the souls of his interlocutors toward
the truth that will prove to benefit their souls most. Both education
and philosophy, then, can truly be accomplished only in the back-
-and-forth movement of dialogue. This genuine kind of speech is
none other than “the living and ensouled speech of the person who
knows". 2
This is an important lesson, not only for the citizens of the ancient
world, but it is an important lesson for us as well. We live in
an era of “specialists" and of “experts" who make their various
claims to wisdom upon us, especially when we are dealing with
matters of a highly technical nature, involving medicine, science
and technology, or a highly academic nature involving law, philosophy
and psychology, which have become increasingly dominated
by their own technical terminology. We also live in a multicultural
world divided by conflicting groups and nations in the East as well
as in the West. No wander then why philosophers from all the parts
of the world have used Plato's Dialectic to promote dialogue and
mutual understanding between different and sometime opposed cultures.
Two such examples from the Eastern and Western cultures
respectively are chosen to serve as paradigm cases.
1. Keping Wang, a University Professor at Beijing International
Studies is chosen to be a paradigm case of the Eastern world. The
most constructive position of Wang Keping in the dialogue of East
and West is his arguments to refute (1) the cultural and geographical
division by Kipling:
“East is East, West is West, And never the twain shall meet",
and (2) to advocate the importance and necessity of mutual understanding,
intercultural communication and complementary interaction
between East and West, by making use of the new Philosophi-
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1 Plato, Phaedrus, 6b; Republic, 521c.
2 Phaedrus, 276a.