Tag: Aristotle
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The Soul of Education, Part 6: St. Augustine and the Incorporeal Ascent
In this series, we have been analyzing the views of the soul in the great thinkers and philosophies of the western tradition. Our working thesis is that our anthropology will inform our pedagogy, even and perhaps especially when we are unaware of our philosophical assumptions, which are often a jumbled up mess. Like an attic…
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Cultivating Character: A Biblical-Aristotelian Approach
It is difficult to imagine a more pressing need in education today than to ensure that we are cultivating students with character: students who are honest, respectful, diligent, prudent, and full of integrity. Character is the foundation for any society. For a civilization to flourish, it needs to be populated by a citizenry with moral…
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The Soul of Education, Part 5: The Stoic Will and the Rational Imperative
In this series, we have been working like the Stoic Athenodorus, following the ghost of our philosophical assumptions about the soul out into the courtyard of ideas to discover what must be retained and what must be reburied. We have engaged with Plato’s immortal and tripartite soul, and explored Aristotle’s integrated hylomorphism, where the soul…
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The Soul of Education, Part 4: Epicureanism and the Material, Atomistic Soul
In our series on the soul of education, we are investigating historical views of the soul that have an impact on both the purpose and the methods of education, maintaining the thesis that our anthropology will inevitably influence our pedagogy. Having engaged with the profound but often fragmented dualism of Plato and the integrated hylomorphism…
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The Soul of Education, Part 3: Aristotle’s Hylomorphic Soul and the Virtuous Mind
In our series on the soul of education, we’re investigating historical views of the soul that have an impact on both the purpose and the methods of education. Our overarching thesis is that our anthropology will inevitably influence our pedagogy. But when we are unaware of the jumbled mix of assumptions we have about ourselves…
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The Great Cause of Teaching
In Aristotle’s writings, the philosopher famously articulates four causes, or explanations, for why a thing exists: Together these causes serve as the foundation for whatever knowledge we can know about anything that exists. In this article, I will explore the final cause, or purpose, of teaching. It practically goes without saying that there is great…
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The Role of Imagination in Education
Imagination. The word brings so much to mind for us today. If there’s one thing that everybody can agree on for children, it’s the need to help them develop a vivid imagination through school, play, and well… everything they do. Or perhaps, ‘develop a vivid imagination’ is the wrong way of putting it. “Every child…
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The Soul of Education, Part 1: What Is a Human Being?
Every educational philosophy necessarily relies on a pre-existing view of the human person. Anthropology informs pedagogy. Many of the problems that classical Christian educators have identified in conventional education have their roots in a false or insufficient view of human beings. The factory model of education, for instance, underrates certain aspects of human development and…
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Counsels of the Wise, Part 9: The Limits and Transcendence of Prudence
We have come full circle in this series on Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of prudence or practical wisdom. Prudence is one of those forgotten gems of the classical educational tradition. Its proper flowering is the result of early instruction, long reflection and the blooming of rationality in man. Discipline, early training in habits, examples and good…
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Goal Setting and Habits: Starting the New Year SMARTer
It is the start of 2024 and I return once more to the topic of habits. (And now at the start of 2026, these concepts remain as relevant as ever!) There is an ancient tradition associating habits with virtues. It was Aristotle, for instance, who wrote that “moral virtue comes about as a result of…