What can we learn from Plato about intellectual character education?

Educational Philosophy and Theory 52 (3):251-260 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In the Republic, Plato developed an educational program through which he trained young Athenians in desiring truth, without offering them any knowledge-education. This is not because he refused to pass on knowledge but because he considered knowledge of the Good as an ongoing research program. I show this by tracing the steps of the education of the Philosopher-Kings in Plato’s ideal state, to establish that the decades-long educational regime aims at training them in three types of virtue: Moral Virtue; the Cognitive Virtue of Abstraction; the Cognitive Virtue of Debate.Plato’s theory of education has much to teach us about intellectual character education today. The Platonic educational program does not advocate the direct transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner but rather focuses on building the learners’ epistemic dispositions. Building upon the Socratic Method, Plato’s educational program does not ‘spoon-feed’ knowledge to the learners but rather fosters the growth of intellectual virtues through problem-solving.I explain ways in which fostering intellectual virtues through problem-solving could be applied in classrooms today. I conclude that Plato’s rigorous educational program is of definite merit for contemporary virtue education, especially since Aristotle offers us surprisingly little on how to educate for intellectual virtues.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,405

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-06-24

Downloads
74 (#233,228)

6 months
23 (#152,466)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Alkis Kotsonis
University of Edinburgh

References found in this work

A virtue epistemology.Ernest Sosa - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Democracy and education : An introduction to the philosophy of education.John Dewey - 1916 - Mineola, N.Y.: Macmillan. Edited by Nicholas Tampio.
Experience and education.John Dewey - 1997 - West Lafayette, Ind.: Kappa Delta Pi.
Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology.Ernest Sosa - 1991 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

View all 38 references / Add more references