Safeguarding against failure in intellectual character education: The case of the eristic agent

Abstract

The vast majority of contemporary scholars working in intellectual character education endeavor to identify those elements that render an educational program reliably successful at fostering the growth of intellectual excellences in students. In this article, I adopt an opposite perspective: I examine potential reasons as to why virtue-based approaches to education might fail to enable students to acquire intellectual virtues. Given the scarcity of accounts of educational failure in contemporary intellectual character education, I search for such accounts in the philosophical roots of the concept of intellectual virtues. In this article, I focus on Plato’s discussion of the eristic agent, namely, an individual who has developed epistemically valuable cognitive abilities but, due to insufficient moral character education, results in misusing them to pursue non-epistemic and quite often also non-moral ends. I argue that Plato’s account of the eristic practice has much to offer to intellectual character education today. It strongly indicates that intellectual virtues cannot be fostered in isolation from moral virtues and that the development of the students’ (1) epistemic emotions and (2) moral virtues should take place prior to the fostering of intellectual excellences in them.

Strengthening The Character of Elementary School Students on Online Learning Through Video Utilization

“…Character building and character education for children are two things that must be done together so that children are smart and have character and manners. The purpose of character education is very important, including encouraging the growth of epistemic emotions (Kotsonis, 2019). The practical purpose of character education in schools is for students to get used to good character, so that they can become good citizens in the future (Syamsuddin et al, 2021).…”

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

“…This is a notable gap in the literature of virtue education-especially considering that Plato has written quite extensively on the methods and goals of virtue education. Having noted this gap, some contemporary educational theorists have turned to Plato's educational theory as a source of inspiration for educational methods that can be applied in contemporary virtue education (Carr, 2010;Jonas, 2016aJonas, , 2016bJonas, , 2017Mintz, 2018;Kotsonis, 2019Kotsonis, , 2020Jonas & Nakazawa, 2020;Marshall, 2020-for an educational-philosophical reading of Plato's philosophical corpus from a non-virtue epistemological/ethical perspective, see Smith, 2011Smith, , 2014Smith, , 2018.…”

“…To my knowledge, this interconnection between political regimes and education found in the Platonic account of imperfect regimes has never been noted (or at least examined thoroughly for its significance for contemporary education). Scholars working in ancient philosophy focus on the political and ethical ideas discussed in the Platonic account of imperfect political systems (see, e.g., Scott, 2000;Hitz, 2010;Johnson, 2015), while those educational theorists who study Plato's theory of education have not examined the educational remarks that Plato makes in his discussion of imperfect political systems (Carr, 2010;Smith, 2011Smith, , 2014Smith, , 2018Jonas, 2016aJonas, , 2016bJonas, , 2017Mintz, 2018;Kotsonis, 2019Kotsonis, , 2020Jonas & Nakazawa, 2020;Marshall, 2020).…”