On the Platonic pedagogical methodology: an alternative to the Aristotelian theory of education

ABSTRACT

My aim in this paper is to challenge the neo-Aristotelian tradition, currently dominant in contemporary theories of virtue education, by proposing the Platonic pedagogical methodology for virtue cultivation as a worthy alternative to the Aristotelian theory of education. I highlight that, in contrast to Aristotle’s limited remarks concerning virtue education, Plato conceptualizes and develops a rigorous educational theory in the Republic that considers many different facets of education – i.e. moral character education, intellectual character education, exemplarism and educational corruption. Given Plato’s immense contribution to virtue education theory, I conclude that his educational program merits more attention. It can serve as inspiration both for improving existing theories of character education and for developing new ones.

KEYWORDS:

• Aristotelian educational theory
• Platonic pedagogical methodology
• the Republic
• contemporary virtue education
• intellectual and moral virtues

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. It might be noteworthy to point out that I understand Plato’s educational program to be distinct from Socratic pedagogical theory. The differences between the two approaches are quite important. For instance, the Socratic approach includes, as part of its methodology, pedagogical tools such as the elenchus, aporia, self-deprecation and irony, while such tools do not feature in the Platonic educational program. Throughout this paper, whenever I talk about Plato’s theory of education, I am referring to his rigorous educational program as presented in the Republic.

2. Note that modern Platonic theories need not accept Plato’s other philosophical ideas, such as the theory of the forms and the tripartition of the soul. This is a standard approach in the few contemporary studies that discuss the import of Plato’s educational theory for character education (see, e.g. Hinchliffe 2006; Jonas 2016a; Kotsonis 2020).

3. Throughout this paper, I am using Ross’s (in Ross and Brown 2009) translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, Jowett’s (1999) translation of the Politics and Lee’s (in Lee and Lane 2007) translation of the Republic.

4. For a different kind of criticism of neo-Aristotelian approaches to character education, see Sanderse (2019).

5. For more on virtue exemplarism and education, see Croce (2020) and Vaccarezza (2020).

6. I note that this does not on its own entail that Plato has more meaningful things to say than Aristotle, although I will proceed in this section to show that in fact he does.

7. Harmful, that is, in the sense that they obstruct agents from living a flourishing life.

8. See for example Rep. III, 404a-d on the appropriate diet for the Guardians. See also 403e1-5, where Plato argues that Guardians should never be allowed to drink too much and get drunk.

9. See for example Rep. III, 405d: ‘And it’s disgraceful too to need a doctor not only for injury or regular disease, but because by leading the kind of idle life we have described we have filled our bodies with gases and fluids, like a stagnant pool, and driven the medical profession to invent names for our diseases, like flatulence and catarrh’.

10. On Platonic accounts of educational corruption, in addition to negative exemplarism, see also Plato’s account of the eristic agent (i.e. an agent who possesses the epistemic abilities to acquire truth but, due to a lack of moral education, uses such abilities for her own non-epistemic gain) and his discussion of the four imperfect political regimes and how a neglect of various aspects of education (e.g. intellectual character education, physical education) has a negative impact on students and society as a whole.

11. The entirety of the second stage of Plato’s educational theory is governed by a learning-through-problem-solving methodology (see Kotsonis 20202020). Students are not spoon-fed knowledge but acquire intellectual virtues through their attempts to solve, at first, mathematical problems and, later, philosophical ones.

12. For more on the education of the third class, see Hurani (1949).

13. See Page (1991) for an overview of the unsympathetic reception of the ‘noble lie’ by modern scholars.

14. See, for example, Pol. 1254b13–14: ‘The male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject’. Plato did not have a more favorable opinion on women: ‘and it is natural for women to take part in all occupations as well as men, though in all women will be the weaker partners’ (Rep. V, 455d10-15). Yet, he still believed, contra Aristotle, that women should receive formal education: ‘to make a woman into a Guardian we need […] the same education as we need to make a man into one, especially as it will operate on the same nature in both’ (456c13-d1).

15. I want to stress that I disagree outright with Plato and Aristotle on these matters (i.e. people being born into classes, the unequal relationship between the two sexes).

16. See also Jonas (2016b) for a reply to this objection.