Plato on the Necessity of Imitation and Habituation for the Cultivation of the Virtues

My aim in this paper is to draw the attention of educational theorists to the pedagogical arguments that Plato puts forward in his account of imperfect political systems (Republic, VIII and IX)-viz. his discussion of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. I present Plato's account of political systems and argue that the educational arguments found in this section of the Republic can be of notable merit for contemporary virtue education for two main (and interrelated) reasons: (i) they highlight ways in which virtue education can fail to bring about the desired outcome (viz. intellectually and morally virtuous students), and (ii) they show the significance of an 'education of desire' for the development of intellectual virtues in students. Following Plato's lead, I argue that physical education is instrumental in training students to regulate their desires-ultimately enabling them to develop intellectual virtues. This is of significant import to contemporary virtue-based approaches to education considering that virtue theorists have yet to determine the best methods to foster the growth of intellectual virtues in students and overlook the significance of physical education for the development of intellectual excellences.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The prominent role of education in the Platonic account of imperfect political systems

Kotsonis

2021

Reevaluating Plato’s legacy to education: an introduction to the suite

Yacek

2023

Plato scholarship in education is currently experiencing a marked renaissance. In the last half decade, dozens of articles have been published in the journals of philosophy of education that engage with Plato’s educational vision, and several book-length treatments have appeared at major publishing houses alongside these articles. From one perspective, this development might seem surprising, even baffling. Plato, as we hear from countless, seemingly reliable sources, is a metaphysician par excellence. He believes in a dubious realm of forms that somehow stands above or behind the things we see in the world. He claims that all learning is ultimately recollection from a time in which our soul resided in this realm, before it was infused into our bodies at birth. He is a trenchant critic of democracy. Given these credentials, it would seem that Plato has very little to say to us in post-metaphysical democratic societies and especially to teachers who hope to have a bit more success than Socrates. And yet the authors of the aforementioned works on Plato argue the very opposite. Plato is an indispensable conversation partner for contemporary educational philosophy and theory, they maintain, and overlooking his insights would seriously impoverish our conceptions and methods of education. This suite of papers aims to provide a helpful overview of the contemporary debate concerning Plato’s educational legacy and show that it provides important guidance for educators today.

Plato’s legacy to education: addressing two misunderstandings

Kotsonis

2023

Building on the re-reading of Plato presented in Jonas and Nakazawa’s A Platonic Theory of Moral Education, , in this paper, I present some reflections on two widespread misunderstandings of Plato’s ideas about education. The first is that the Platonic theory of education is non-egalitarian, promoting an educational system that justifies and perpetuates a caste-based society. The second is that the Platonic conception of the virtuous agent is primitive and far inferior to the Aristotelian conception, especially concerning the psychological make-up of the virtuous agent. By exploring some of the ways these mis-readings can be countered, I defend the value of the Platonic educational theory for contemporary education and show the value of Jonas and Nakazawa’s wider project.