We began this series with a proposal to replace Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives with Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues. While Bloom and his fellow university examiners aimed to create clarity in teaching goals through a common language, their taxonomy of cognitive domain objectives may have done more harm than good. In rejecting the traditional paradigm of the liberal arts and sciences, they privileged the bare intellect and isolated acts of the mind as if they were the whole of education.
When we compare these bite-sized pieces of “analysis” and “comprehension” to the artistry of grammar and rhetoric, for instance, we can see that Bloom’s Taxonomy has dwarfed the beauty and complexity of the educational enterprise in an effort to make it scientific and measurable. Through our exploration of Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of artistry or craftsmanship (techne in Greek), we’ve rediscovered the traditional nature of the arts and their situatedness in human culture and civilization. Treating this educational goal like a machine part that can be installed the same way in any number of factories around the world doesn’t quite do it justice.
There is, however, a general method for training an apprentice in an art, but for competent training to occur, all the specifics of the art itself must be in view, and the teacher must be a competent craftsman himself to apprentice a student. We should not be surprised at the minimal attainments in intellectual complexity, speaking and writing ability, or piercing scientific inquiry of our students, when our teachers’ colleges are not aimed at developing paragons of intellectual virtue. After all, the student will become like his teacher.
Of course, not everything is about intellectual attainment as it is conventionally understood. As we have seen, within the Aristotelian understanding of artistry are included athletics and sports, common and domestic arts, the professions and trades, fine and performing arts, as well the traditional liberal arts of language and number. All of these traditions have been developed in different ways over the centuries and it is the skills and sub-skills of these traditions of expertise that we are training students in, whether through deliberate or purposeful practice.
Apprenticeship in artistry ties together the heart, head and body in a unique way that will take us some way to restoring a truly Christian and classical vision for the goals of education. But artistry is not enough. In fact, what we are aiming for must necessarily take us further up and further in. As the tradition expressed in various ways, even the liberal arts themselves are preparatory. They are not the final end, but in themselves transcend toward something higher. Although as an intellectual virtue artistry involves the heart and head, it is best symbolized by the training of the hand. In the classical hierarchy of value, the heart must direct the skills of the hand as merely a part of the life well lived.
The Intellectual Virtue of the Heart: Prudence
We must now move upward and enter the realm of the heart. Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of phronesis is often translated as practical wisdom or prudence. He defines it as “a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, ch. 5; rev. Oxford trans., 1801). If the intellectual virtue of artistry is concerned with our human ability to make things in the world, prudence refers to our ability to act, and to choose how we will act. In this connection we can return to Mortimer Adler’s helpful explanation of Aristotle in Aristotle for Everybody. He breaks down Aristotle’s conceptions of human beings into three categories: Man the Maker, Man the Doer and Man the Knower (16-17). Adler clarifies that these are more like dimensions than rigidly separated parts of the human being. Just as “a dimension is a direction in which I can move,” (16) human beings can make, act, and know. It is important to clarify that each of these dimensions is intellectual; as Adler explains,
Aristotle was very much concerned with the differences that distinguish these three kinds of thinking. He used the term ‘productive thinking’ to describe the kind of thinking that man engages in as a maker; ‘practical thinking’ to describe the kind that he engages in as a doer; and ‘speculative’ or ‘theoretical thinking’ to describe the kind he engages in as a knower. (17-18)
Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues fall neatly into these three dimensions of thinking. Artistry falls under our creative ability to make things in and of the world; prudence under our ability to deliberate about how we shall act, make choices and intentionally act to attain some good in the world; intuition, scientific knowledge and philosophic wisdom under our ability to know. In laying this out so neatly, Aristotle is attentive to the overlapping and interpenetrating character of these dimensions of our thinking. In regaining his terminology, we rediscover forgotten goals of education that we have been unable to correctly name for generations.
Prudence is one such forgotten gem. Adler goes on to describe the dimension of Man as Doer:
In the second of these dimensions, doing, we have man the moral and social being—someone who can do right or wrong, someone who, by what he or she does or does not do, either achieves happiness or fails to achieve it, someone who finds it necessary to associate with other human beings in order to do what, as a human being, he or she feels impelled to do. (17)
If, as we contested (in Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education), the ultimate purpose of Christian education is the eternal happiness of human beings through the manifestation of all the moral, intellectual and spiritual virtues to the glory of God in salvation, then prudence too cannot be left out of our educational paradigm.
Foundations of a Christian Prudence
As an intellectual virtue, prudence sits at the center of a human being, tying a person’s enacted choices in the body to their mind. It represents the seat of a person’s will or ability to choose, and the locus of their affections and desires. The heart is the wellspring of life. As Jesus makes clear, it is not the beautiful things a person makes that show the character and ultimate destiny of an individual, but how the person lives; it is not what he knows, but what he does that shows the nature of a man. False prophets, those who presumptuously claim special knowledge from on high, will be recognized by their fruits:
Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. (Matt 7:16b-20 ESV)
That Jesus is not referring to people’s acts of production by the analogy of fruit is clear enough from the context. He goes on (7:21-23) to envision how even the most spiritual products of artistry—prophecy and exorcism and “mighty works”—are not reliable signs of a person’s genuineness, but only their actions: whether or not they are “workers of lawlessness” (7:23).
Even if the New Testament does not retain Aristotle’s exact lexical distinction between practical wisdom and philosophic wisdom (phronesis and sophia), we can discern its prioritization of a practical wisdom for life that joins hands and head in a pure heart. For instance, consider how James challenges the believer who boasts in the wisdom of the mind:
Who is wise [Greek: sophos] and understanding [epistemon, scientifically knowledgeable?] among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom [sophia] that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual [Greek: soulish], demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom [sophia] from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (James 3:13-17)
What sort of wisdom should the Christian be primarily concerned with? Not the soulish wisdom of the world, typical even of the wisest pagans like Aristotle. It is a relational wisdom, characterized by humility and good conduct, rather than self-aggrandizement. While James uses the term sophia, he undoubtedly has something akin to practical wisdom in view. Notice how every instance of it has to do with actions in the world and relationships with others, not the comprehension and demonstration of universals in the highest subjects, as Aristotle had defined sophia.
We might pause here to note that even in Aristotle’s day, his proposed distinctions between these intellectual virtues were not followed well or strictly. He notes in Book VI, ch. 7 that in his day sophia was used of the “most finished exponents [of the arts], e.g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a maker of statues, and here we mean nothing by wisdom except excellence in art” (1801). In no age or culture can we trust the words and categories that are commonly used as the best or wisest way to map reality. This again is why Bloom’s Taxonomy was doomed from the start to simply reaffirm the modernist assumptions of its own day. Taking teachers’ own terms for their goals as the starting point for a taxonomy of educational objectives is an anti-philosophical move, savoring of pragmatism. It assumes the average Joe or Mary has the truth without inquiry or instruction. Aristotle, on the other hand, is a leading proponent of beginning with the common language conceptions, but then challenging them and attempting to explain them from within a broader philosophical frame of reference.
But returning to our foundations for a Christian prudence, we could go on to enumerate a host of passages which demonstrate the Bible’s emphasis on this lost virtue. St Paul’s claim that “knowledge puffs up but love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1) points the way to a Gospel-shaped prudence that sacrifices for others, rather than holding up my own individual happiness as the final end. It is this agape way of choosing and acting in the world that transcends Aristotle’s earthly goods with a spiritual frame of reference and an imperishable wreath (1 Cor 9:25). In case this seems too far-fetched an endorsement of Christian prudence, we could cite our Lord’s direct command to his disciples, “Behold I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; be therefore wise [phronemoi, prudent] as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16), which likewise baptizes a worldly prudence with a spiritual purity.
“Every scriptural text,” according to Paul, “is God-breathed and profitable for instruction, for rebuke, for correction, for an education [paideia, discipline or enculturation process] that is in righteousness, that the person devoted to God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). The Bible itself aims at the moral and intellectual instruction in prudence that will enable the believer to live well. I can’t think of any higher endorsement of a prudence-focused form of education than that.
The major concern of the biblical book of Proverbs is manifestly analogous to Aristotle’s prudence, concerning more how a man lives than what he knows abstractly. While there are occasional glimmers of how the Hebrew term hokhma (wisdom) includes knowledge of the natural world and its innerworkings (see e.g. 8:22-31 and compare Solomon’s wisdom in 1 Kings 4:29-34), the predominant focus of a Proverbs education is the practical wisdom to live a flourishing life in submission to God’s moral instruction. That after all is the tenor of the whole book, it is an education in prudence that the proverbs themselves aim at. (This has far-reaching implications for a pedagogy of prudence, by the way, which we will explore in a subsequent article.) The book of Ecclesiastes, likewise, pushes the boundaries of prudence “under the sun,” in order to establish a God-centered, immanent frame of reference for a life well lived:
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (12:13-14)
Both the awareness of future judgment and the love of God displayed on the cross must color the Christian educational vision of prudence. But they do not eliminate it.
We have already had occasion to cite the author of Hebrews, who calls for Christian maturity: “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (5:14). The term ‘discernment’ helps bring out the critical relationship between prudence and the ability to deliberate correctly in Aristotle. Similarly to how we must discern between good and evil in biblical terminology, deliberation is different from inquiry into truth, for Aristotle, but instead names when a person thinks correctly about human goods and the courses of action that he might choose.
The Moral Virtues and Prudence
We already discussed this passage from Hebrews while exploring the analogy between artistry and morality. We noted that “constant practice” is involved as the foundation of a developed discernment. Moral habits and virtues enable the flowering of prudence as a youth’s reason develops. The heart of prudence must have a bodily foundation in the nerves even as it transcends into the rational nature of a human being. As C.S. Lewis put it in The Abolition of Man, with which we critiqued Bloom’s Taxonomy near the start of this series,
Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment. The crudest sentimentalism… about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of more use. We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man rust rule the mere appetites by means of the ‘spirited element’. The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. (24-25)
While the moral virtues are strictly speaking outside the purview of our study on Aristotle’s intellectual virtues, they are intricately tied to the acquisition of prudence. In fact, for Aristotle, each one is impossible without the other. As he puts it, “the function of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom as well as with moral excellence; for excellence makes the aim right, and practical wisdom the things leading to it” (VI.12; 1807).
A man in battle who is cowardly aims incorrectly at his own preservation, since his nerves and emotions are not trained to endure the possibility of his own death. The proper habit training and implantation of ideas (“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,”; “How sweet and honorable it is to die for one’s country,” from Horace’s Odes, III.2.13; see Lewis, Abolition of Man, 21-22) would have provided him with the right aim: what we would call his moral duty. Practical wisdom would guide him in thinking rationally about the choices he must make on the way to the set of aims his gut and chest have attuned him to. Only those who have been trained by “constant practice” can discern or deliberate correctly regarding what is good and right.
Perhaps the best way to understand this as moderns is through the idea of conscience. It is not quite right for Jiminy Cricket to say, “Always let your conscience be your guide.” In actual fact, the conscience itself is precisely what must be trained and renewed, if we are to discern correctly. As Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). The mind or conscience—Paul uses the term nous (“intution”), but it seems to have the nuance here of a person’s frame of reference for moral decision-making specifically—must be transformed. In addition, continual testing or deliberating is required if a person is to discern God’s will. The conscience is key, but not as an infallible guide.
Charlotte Mason, the late 19th and early 20th century British Christian educator, understood this well. In her fourth volume entitled Ourselves, Mason discusses a series of what she calls “Instructors of Conscience”: Poetry, Novels, Essays, History, Philosophy, Theology, Nature, Science, Art, Sociology and Self-Knowledge (Book II, pp. 71-104). This list puts the lie to the supposition that we can do nothing as educators to influence the moral formation of our students. If we only consider for a moment why many Great Works on these subjects were written in the first place, we can quel the nagging modern fallacy that education should have nothing to do with a child’s “personal” moral values.
The subjects of study named by Charlotte Mason are all worthy of fuller consideration when we explore how in fact we can educate our children for prudence: the great answer being that we are to open our students’ minds and hearts to the counsels of the wise, as the name for this mini-series suggests. But for now we can note the dangers of the uninstructed conscience in Mason’s words:
There is no end to the vagaries of the uninstructed conscience. It is continually straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel. The most hardened criminal has his conscience; and he justifies that which he does by specious reasons. ‘Society is against’ him, he says; he ‘has never had a fair chance.’ Why should he ‘go about ragged and hungry when another man rides in his carriage and eats and drinks his fill?’ ‘If that man has so much, let him keep it if he can; if cleverer wits than his contrive to ease him of a little, that is only fair play.’ Thus do reason and inclination support one another in the mind of the Ishmael whose hand is against every man; and, if every man’s hand is against him, that is all the more reason, he urges, that he should get what he can take out of life. (vol. 4 p. 60)
Moral reasoning is natural to all human beings. But the uninstructed conscience cannot be trusted to deliberate or reason correctly regarding what is good for itself or for human beings generally. All the humanities at least, are aimed to one extent or another at passing down some of humanity’s hard-won wisdom about how best to act and live as a human being.
One of the most damning sins of Bloom’s taxonomy in this regard is that it directs a teacher’s focus away from the beating heart of the subjects she is teaching. Instead of drawing moral wisdom from the heart of a novel or history book, we drain the life out of it through a host of analytical exercises and comprehension questions, thus literally trivializing the counsels of the wise. (I have discussed this problem before in The Flow of Thought, Part 8: Restoring the School of Philosophers.) In this mini-series on educating for prudence through the counsels of the wise, I hope to lay out a rationale and method for instructing the consciences of our students through the subjects that we teach. In addition to training our students’ hands, we must educate their hearts.
